←back to thread

Are OpenAI and Anthropic losing money on inference?

(martinalderson.com)
507 points martinald | 1 comments | 28 Aug 25 10:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
gitremote ◴[28 Aug 25 13:44 UTC] No.45052117[source]▶
These numbers are off.

> $20/month ChatGPT Pro user: Heavy daily usage but token-limited

ChatGPT Pro is $200/month and Sam Altman already admitted that OpenAI is losing money from Pro subscriptions in January 2025:

"insane thing: we are currently losing money on openai pro subscriptions!

people use it much more than we expected."

- Sam Altman, January 6, 2025

https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1876104315296968813

replies(9): >>45052594 #>>45052618 #>>45053078 #>>45053278 #>>45053311 #>>45053620 #>>45053859 #>>45055188 #>>45055732 #
chairhairair ◴[28 Aug 25 15:19 UTC] No.45053311[source]▶
Anyone paying attention should have zero trust in what Sam Altman says.
replies(1): >>45053915 #
simianwords ◴[28 Aug 25 16:09 UTC] No.45053915[source]▶
What do you think his strategy is? He has to make money at some point.

I don’t buy the logic that he will “scam” his investors and run away at some point.

replies(2): >>45055711 #>>45059721 #
achenet ◴[28 Aug 25 18:58 UTC] No.45055711[source]▶
He makes money by convincing people to buy OpenAI stock.

If OpenAI goes down tomorrow, he will be just fine. His incentive is to sell the stock, not actually build and run a profitable business.

Look at Adam Neumann as an example of how to lose billions of investor dollars and still walk out of the ensuing crash with over a billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann

His strategy is to sell OpenAI stock like it was Bitcoin in 2020, and if for some reason the market decides that maybe a company that loses large amounts of cash isn't actually a good investment... he'll be fine, he's had plenty of time to turn some of his stock into money :)

replies(2): >>45056473 #>>45056594 #
simianwords ◴[28 Aug 25 20:06 UTC] No.45056473[source]▶
Why not build a profitable business like Zucc, Bill gates, Jensen, Sergey etc? These people are way richer much more powerful.
replies(1): >>45063491 #
1. achenet ◴[29 Aug 25 12:55 UTC] No.45063491{3}[source]▶
I believe, but have no proof, that the answer is "because it's easier to sell stock in an unprofitable business than build a profitable one", although given the other comment, there's a good chance I'm wrong about this :)