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How OpenAI uses complex and circular deals to fuel its multibillion-dollar rise

(www.nytimes.com)
387 points reaperducer | 1 comments | 31 Oct 25 13:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.218s | source
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nova22033 ◴[31 Oct 25 14:59 UTC] No.45772702[source]▶
Related

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1...

Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter

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guywithahat ◴[31 Oct 25 15:07 UTC] No.45772839[source]▶
It's incredible how Tesla used to lose a few hundred million a year and analysis shows would freak out claiming they'd never be profitable. Now Rivian can lose 5 billion a year and I don't hear anything about it, and OpenAI can lose 11 billion in a quarter and Microsoft still backs them.

I do think this is going to be a deeply profitable industry, but this feels a little like the WeWork CEO flying couches to offices in private jets

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randomNumber7 ◴[31 Oct 25 15:10 UTC] No.45772879[source]▶
The winner takes it all, so it is reasonable to bet big to be the one.
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anonymousiam ◴[31 Oct 25 15:16 UTC] No.45772975[source]▶
The one what? What is the secret sauce that will distinguish one LLM from another? Is it patentable? What's going to prevent all of the free LLMs from winning the prize? An AI crash seems inevitable.
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schnitzelstoat ◴[31 Oct 25 15:24 UTC] No.45773079[source]▶
It could end up like Search did, at first you had Lycos, AskJeeves, Altavista etc. and then Google became absolutely dominant.

They want to be the Google in this scenario.

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1. skeeter2020 ◴[31 Oct 25 15:40 UTC] No.45773310[source]▶
Then they're doing it backwards. Google first built a far superior product, then pursued all the tricks to maintain their monopoly. OpenAI at best has the illusion of a superior product, and even that is a stretch.