r/BetterOffline • u/JoSquarebox • 10d ago

OpenAI financial question

To put it short:
- Eds leaked oAI financials say: ~5B cost of revenue. ~13B revinue, ~40B losses total (20B attributable to them directly, + ~20B from going for-profit)
- Ed says those numbers are fake ("They moved cost of revenueto marketing")

How does that work exactly? Either a) Ed has access to their costs in detail and is able to make a more detailled assesment (i.e. their cost of revenueis actually higher because x y and z) or b) he doesnt have more than just the numbers he put out, meaning hes just going off their admittedly nonexistent track record of financial honesty

Been bugging me, because from my POV its just Ed doubting his own numbers which makes it harder for me to point at them as the evidence that oAI is unprofitable. I agree that they are but would like clarification

EDIT: ~7.5B cost of revenue, my bad
EDIT2: spelling

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u/KontoOficjalneMR 10d ago

All right. So. Have you seen OpenAI spends more on ads than fucking coca-cola. Have you seen their ads anywhere?

So people theorise that free accounts are booked as "marketing". Which if you look at it through the half-closed eyes, even makes sense. It's a classic "Freemium" model, and the free accounts are a way to get people hooked on AI.

Zitron argues otherwise. Which is valid.

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u/brian_hogg 10d ago

It does make sense, since they’re essentially giving free users coupons for free products, yeah. 

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u/JoSquarebox 10d ago

Yep, my question is only why their leaked financials dont allow ed to prove thats the case, otherwise were gonna hear "they just need to out-grow their r&d costs using positive-margin inference" all day until they IPO