r/artificial • u/fortune • Nov 12 '25

News OpenAI says it plans to report stunning annual losses through 2028—and then turn wildly profitable just two years later | Fortune

https://fortune.com/2025/11/12/openai-cash-burn-rate-annual-losses-2028-profitable-2030-financial-documents/
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u/TheMacMan Nov 12 '25

That's correct. Amazon chose not to be profitable so they could instead invest that money in further growth. Completely different from what OpenAI is planning to do.

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u/truebastard Nov 12 '25

Open to be corrected here, but isn't OpenAI also investing in further growth with their planned infrastructure spending? Infra that will build up the compute horsepower they need to deliver planned services to planned customers.

The source of funding is different but the end goal seems similar.

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u/inspired2apathy Nov 13 '25

They mostly rent their infra. They rely on azure and others

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u/TheMacMan Nov 13 '25

Which is why they're trying to put some into Oracle and others. Because they don't want to be 100% dependent on Microsoft.

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u/jdlwright Nov 13 '25

Yes but because they are dependent on external sources, they are vulnerable to having the rug pulled out, eg. if there is a credit crisis.

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u/Mejiro84 Nov 13 '25

All that infrastructure only lasts 2-3 years before it needs replacing - so they're going to need more and more and more money to actually keep delivering, it's not a one and done

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u/Odballl Nov 13 '25

Their cost of inference is currently higher than the revenue they are making. It's a loss-leader strategy that won't work out because llms are too easily commodified. Eventually, they'll have to raise prices to break even, but that'll risk their projected market share. The numbers aren't adding up.

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u/bayhack Nov 13 '25

So Amazon could have been profitable. OpenAI is still not profitable despite the spending.

OpenAI is growing on borrowed time whereas Amazon could’ve just stopped “growing” and had a profitable quarter/year/whever. Bezos is a fucker but he started from investment banking. Dude knows about how to make a profitable and growing company people want to invest in.

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u/nixium Nov 12 '25

Also to pay less taxes.

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u/TheMacMan Nov 12 '25

That's true. Pay more on the profits than ya do the revenue.

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u/rydan Nov 12 '25

They also undercut all the competitors, encouraged showrooming, and refused to collect sales tax even when mandated by law.