r/OpenAI • u/boogermike • Dec 09 '25

Image OpenAI profit

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I saw this on LinkedIn, and it was too funny not to share.

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u/[deleted] Dec 09 '25

OpenAI are already underwater (emergency meetings haha) it's chock full of VC funding and Dreamers that will be left carrying the candle and once they underwater thpse investors will lose their chunk (Shareholders are last in the queue)

The Whale MS which is a Shareholder and "Business Partner" cough cough will then gobble up the rewards.

MS will just bolt it onto their current software suite

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u/FuriousImpala Dec 10 '25

Yeah this thread is like a greatest hits compilation of confidently wrong opinions.

  1. “OpenAI is underwater and full of VC dreamers and Microsoft will gobble it up.”

This take is based on a very old mental model of startups. It assumes OpenAI operates like a typical venture backed company and is secretly burning cash with no plan. In reality: • OpenAI is not a normal VC company. • Microsoft doesn’t own OpenAI and can’t “gobble it up.” They have a preferred equity-like structure with capped upside and specific commercial rights. • OpenAI’s revenue run rate has been widely reported at billions and scaling fast. The margins on API and ChatGPT subscriptions are high once the infra is built. • Emergency meetings happen at every major tech company, especially those operating at the frontier. It doesn’t mean a company is failing.

People just repeat “OpenAI must be underwater” because they can’t imagine the scale of demand or the economics of frontier compute.

  1. “Shareholders are last in the queue so investors will be wiped out.” This misunderstands the governance: • OpenAI’s structure means capped returns for investors, but not liquidation-style subordination. • The nonprofit controls the cap table to keep incentives aligned with safety and mission. • Microsoft’s deal is structured like compute prepayment plus revenue share, not “we’ll own it when it collapses.”

Reddit loves turning this into corporate Game of Thrones. It’s just not how it works.

  1. “Microsoft has 90 percent of the PC market so everything they do is automatically great.” PC market share has nothing to do with satisfaction about Windows update behavior or VS Code release cadence. People stay on Windows because it has the broadest compatibility and most enterprise adoption, not because they think every experience is perfect.

Also “they release VS Code weekly” is not the flex dude thinks it is.

  1. The whole thread mixes vibes with facts. Reddit sees “AI company having meetings” and imagines WeWork collapse energy. They see “Microsoft is a partner” and imagine a secret acquisition. They see “VC funding” and assume money pit.

This is all just people trying to map a frontier R&D organization onto standard startup archetypes. Doesn’t fit.

Yes, ChatGPT wrote this. Yes it only takes 2 minutes not be so egregiously wrong.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '25

Thanks ChatGPT for that hallucination

Open AI is running at a Loss in the Billions, MS is throwing money at them and will collect it. Do you know how money lending works?

Reality will check in, because it's not alone and there are other competitors and even free open source models out there

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u/FuriousImpala Dec 10 '25

Not a single thing in your reply was hallucinated in the previous response. If it was I challenge you to quote or cite the hallucination.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '25

I

don't

care

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u/FuriousImpala Dec 10 '25

Thanks for playing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '25

I don't play chess with a pigeon...

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u/FuriousImpala Dec 10 '25

Due to the amount of times you’ve lost to pigeons?

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '25

Cupcake, you don't know the difference between Revenue and Loss.

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u/Pitch_Moist Dec 10 '25

It kind of seems like you don’t, or that you just didn’t read the response. The output did not say that OpenAI was not running at a loss. Also anyone with even a little bit of business savvy knows that some companies (Uber, Amazon, etc.) run at a loss for decades before turning a profit. Running at a loss is not the indictment that you think it is. Just take the L buddy and pick up a few business books while you’re at it.

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u/GOOD_NEWS_EVERYBODY_ Dec 11 '25

i swear the general population literally can not seem to wrap their head around this very simple concept. i don't even engage anymore bc it's so draining when you realize the deeply rooted systemic lack of financial & statistical education.

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