OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said the company is doing “well above” $13 billion in annual revenue — and sounded a bit exasperated when pressed on how it might repay its massive expenses.
His comments got here along joint interview on the Bg2 podcast between Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the partnership between their two corporations. Host Brad Gerstner (who is also the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) reported that the company is currently generating roughly $13 billion in revenue — a sizable amount, but dwarfing the greater than $1 trillion in computing infrastructure spending that OpenAI has revamped the next decade.
“First of all, we’re making much more revenue,” Altman said. “Second, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer. I’ll just… that’s enough. I think there are a lot of people who would be willing to buy OpenAI shares.”
“Including me,” Gertner interjected.
Altman then added that some critics “speak with bated breath and concern about our calculations or anything else that would be thrilled to buy our stock.”
In fact, he said that while there are “few times” he wants OpenAI to be a public company, “One of the rare times it’s attractive is when these people write these absurd statements: ‘OpenAI is about to go out of business.’ [posts]I would love to tell them that they will just sell the stock and I might love to see them burn themselves over it.
Altman acknowledged that the company could “screw it up” by not having access to sufficient computing resources, for example, but said “revenue is growing rapidly.”
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“We assume that it will continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT continue to grow, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer devices business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate learning will create enormous value,” he added.
Nadella, who laughed through most of Altman’s answers, also claimed that OpenAI “beat” every marketing strategy he received from Microsoft as an investor.
Gertner returned to the topic of OpenAI’s revenue and IPO plans later in the interview, when he speculated that the company would hit $100 billion in revenue in 2028 or 2029.
– How about 27? Altman objected.
At the same time, he denied reports that OpenAI plans to go public next yr.
“No, no, we don’t have anything that specific,” Altman said. “I’m a realist. I assume it will happen one day, but I don’t know why people are writing these reports. We don’t have a date scheduled, we don’t have a board decision to do it or anything like that. I just assume that’s how it will ultimately work out.”