I feel like I've been hearing this same argument about unicorn startups for fifteen years now: they aren't monetizing yet because it's easier to sell the possibility than the reality. There's probably some truth to it, but I think here it misses the mark, because OpenAI is monetizing. They're likely to hit $20 billion in annualized revenue by year's end. I guess maybe he's holding off on ads because then he can say that'll be even bigger?

But honestly...he's not wrong. I think ads in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are going to absolutely dwarf subscription revenue.