> How did Uber somewhat break even? They lost $34b before making a profit.

It took them ~14 years to lose that $34 billion. Some projections suggest that OpenAI has lost a third of that in a single quarter. Even the most optimistic projections indicate that they're losing that much every 2-3 years. There's talk that they might lose ~$150B before profitability.

These are just numbers on a page to regular people, but $34 billion and $150 billion are very different numbers.

Uber is a taxi company hoping for a monopoly in the US. OpenAI is a software company hoping for a monopoly in many counties.