Can someone tell me if this is bad, good or normal?

Can someone tell me if this is bad, good or normal?

It's...weird? Not normal, anyway.

Usually $10 billion worth of revenue has obvious products, services and outcomes it to point to.

$10 billion is a difficult to understand amount of money, and unusual for a relatively new software as a service company.

• The first iPhone release completely transformed society within a few years...and earned about 1/10th that much revenue (6 million units at $700.00, if I've got my sums right). (Although I imagine Apple makes much more from the app store, than the devices.)

• $10 billion is about 1/4 of the annual revenue of SalesForce, one of the most successful software as a service companies. SalesForce generates sales, which companies tend to be quite happy to pay for, of course.

So OpenAI doubling in revenue and hitting those kinds of numbers this soon is, odd. Unexpected.

To speculate a bit, it may be the kind of fortune enjoyed by folks who sold mining equipment to gold diggers during the gold rush.

There is presumably lots of speculative investment money flowing to companies that are promising big rewards from novel applications of the OpenAI technology. Of course they have to purchase the technology today, to deliver the huge novel profits next year...

I base this speculation the observation that there's usually sizeable amounts of money chasing hot new technologies.

It's...weird? Not normal, anyway.

Usually $10 billion worth of revenue has obvious products, services and outcomes it to point to.

$10 billion is a difficult to understand amount of money, and unusual for a relatively new software as a service company.

• The first iPhone release completely transformed society within a few years...and earned about 1/10th that much revenue (6 million units at $700.00, if I've got my sums right). (Although I imagine Apple makes much more from the app store, than the devices.)

• $10 billion is about 1/4 of the annual revenue of SalesForce, one of the most successful software as a service companies. SalesForce generates sales, which companies tend to be quite happy to pay for, of course.

So OpenAI doubling in revenue and hitting those kinds of numbers this soon is, odd. Unexpected.

To speculate a bit, it may be the kind of fortune enjoyed by folks who sold mining equipment to gold diggers during the gold rush.

There is presumably lots of speculative investment money flowing to companies that are promising big rewards from novel applications of the OpenAI technology. Of course they have to purchase the technology today, to deliver the huge novel profits next year...

I base this speculation the observation that there's usually sizeable amounts of money chasing hot new technologies.

Thats less than 50 million GPT plus subscriptions, even fewer if you factor in the more expensive subscriptions. Thats alot of subscriptions, but not an implausible number.

Do you think OpenAI could be falsifying data, laundering money, or is it just that investors are hyped about AI?

Good point.

That would put OpenAI around #5 on this list (by estimated subscriber count): https://largest.org/technology/largest-saas-businesses-by-number-of-subscribers/

Less than Microsoft, Google, SalesForce and Zoom - but higher than Slack, DropBox, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

It's surprising and rare for a relatively new company to jump that high in user base this quick.

It's surprising, but it's plausible. OpenAI and derived products do anecdotally seem about that popular, this year.

They love pointing out their revenue instead of their profit. It they were truly making money, you’d think they’d refer to their profit instead.

I assume that any venture backed company riding the crest of a hype wave is doing all three of those things, (because many past venture backed companies riding the crest of a hype wave have turned out to be doing all three of those things.)

There are more con-artists at an average technology investment conference, than there are free vendor labeled give-away USB drives.

But OpenAI is still a real tool, and actually does some interesting stuff. (Contrasted with many past venture investment hype waves that were 100% pure bullshit, such as various "risk free" finance products, and some "no one asked for this" BlockChain apps.)

That said - as others in this thread have pointed out - while the revenue quote is a surprising number, it's not completely implausible, by any means. I personally know plenty of people who find an AI product subscription worth a few dollars each month.

Thats less than 50 million GPT plus subscriptions, even fewer if you factor in the more expensive subscriptions. Thats alot of subscriptions, but not an implausible number.

It's...weird? Not normal, anyway.

Usually $10 billion worth of revenue has obvious products, services and outcomes it to point to.

$10 billion is a difficult to understand amount of money, and unusual for a relatively new software as a service company.

• The first iPhone release completely transformed society within a few years...and earned about 1/10th that much revenue (6 million units at $700.00, if I've got my sums right). (Although I imagine Apple makes much more from the app store, than the devices.)

• $10 billion is about 1/4 of the annual revenue of SalesForce, one of the most successful software as a service companies. SalesForce generates sales, which companies tend to be quite happy to pay for, of course.

So OpenAI doubling in revenue and hitting those kinds of numbers this soon is, odd. Unexpected.

To speculate a bit, it may be the kind of fortune enjoyed by folks who sold mining equipment to gold diggers during the gold rush.

There is presumably lots of speculative investment money flowing to companies that are promising big rewards from novel applications of the OpenAI technology. Of course they have to purchase the technology today, to deliver the huge novel profits next year...

I base this speculation the observation that there's usually sizeable amounts of money chasing hot new technologies.

Good point.

That would put OpenAI around #5 on this list (by estimated subscriber count): https://largest.org/technology/largest-saas-businesses-by-number-of-subscribers/

Less than Microsoft, Google, SalesForce and Zoom - but higher than Slack, DropBox, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

It's surprising and rare for a relatively new company to jump that high in user base this quick.

It's surprising, but it's plausible. OpenAI and derived products do anecdotally seem about that popular, this year.

And now the expenses…?

🦗🦗🦗

Revenue is a standard unit of measurement for any venture backed business because it gauges interest and growth better than profit does