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

(www.nytimes.com)
387 points reaperducer | 2 comments | 31 Oct 25 13:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.417s | 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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1. dmoy ◴[31 Oct 25 15:45 UTC] No.45773367[source]▶
> 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

Rivian stock is down 90%, and I fairly regularly read financial news about it having bad earnings, stock going even lower, worst-in-industry reliability, etc etc.

I don't know why you don't hear about it, but it might be because it's already looking dead in the water so there's no additional news juice to squeeze out of it.

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2. guywithahat ◴[31 Oct 25 19:07 UTC] No.45775546[source]▶
That's true, I shouldn't have written it off and was too eager to make the analogy.

There was a point where because of Tesla's enormous profits, it was seen as ok for Rivian to lose that much in a year, which was incredible because it's about the same amount of money Tesla lost during its entire tenure as a public company. You're right though they've been criticized for it and have paid the (stock) price for it.