| ▲ | OpenAI Leans Toward Waiting Until Next Year for IPO(nytimes.com) |
| 85 points by mfiguiere 3 hours ago | 57 comments |
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| ▲ | cdrnsf 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > The A.I. company’s advisers are pushing its chief executive, Sam Altman, to move slowly after SpaceX’s stock has been volatile and as the start-up grapples with financial challenges. SpaceX's stock volatile? It's a shame nobody saw that coming. |
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| ▲ | echelon an hour ago | parent [-] | | Is it still being prematurely included in the major index funds? | | |
| ▲ | opinion-is-bad 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Only the Nasdaq, which is an intentionally aggressive index. The S&P rejected all proposals. | |
| ▲ | winfredJa 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | yes, in few weeks.unfortunately the stock will be back from this slump | | |
| ▲ | androiddrew 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Ummm probably not. Lock ups are going to dump far more stock into the market. | | |
| ▲ | kurthr 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | But they are going to coincide lockups with the release of additional stock float from 5% up to 20% of the total "valuation" with a 3x QQQ multiplier so that stock indexes will treat them as 60% float even though 2/3rds of those shares are unavailable. Thus they guarantee that even more shares must be bought by tracking ETFs and institutional buyers. Everybody (that already owns pre-IPO shares) wins! |
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| ▲ | cmiles8 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The window has basically closed for them for the time being. The business math just isn’t there. The best option at this point is kick the can down the road and hope market sentiment improves next year. Not much signal that it will, and quite a lot of signal the sentiment only declines, but pumping the brakes is the least worst option on the table. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > window has basically closed for them for the time being. The business math just isn’t there Unless Anthropic also cancels its IPO, this probably isn't it. | | |
| ▲ | cmiles8 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The math doesn’t help Anthropic either but the market views these two companies very differently at the moment. Anthropic is seen as having momentum. Open AI is seen as having likely peaked. That makes a huge difference when pitching an IPO. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > but the market views these two companies very differently at the moment. Anthropic is seen as having momentum. Open AI is seen as having likely peaked What are you basing this on? Both are currently doing rounds/tenders that are placing without problems. The media treats these two differently, as do financial influencers. But I'd be careful about conflating either of them with the market. | | |
| ▲ | stymaar 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > But I'd be careful about conflating either of them with the market. The finance market and the market for these products are two different things. Anthropic has definitely been stealing market share to OpenAI in the past few month on many segments (be it enterprise or even consumers). |
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| ▲ | wiiww an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Agree but Anthropic momentum is fading too. Open source is starting to slowly become a source of frustration for frontier labs In the discussion around value for money. | | |
| ▲ | reilly3000 an hour ago | parent [-] | | How is momentum fading when their headline product is so good it’s illegal? | | |
| ▲ | jazzyjackson 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | How do you grow your business when your flagship product is illegal? | |
| ▲ | andy99 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think they may have overplayed their hand so to speak. The end consequence is that their best model isn’t available right now, people are exploring alternatives, and realizing they work fine. It’s such a fast paced and competitive industry, anyone who takes even a short break is going to have a hard time coming back from it, and that’s basically what they’ve done. | |
| ▲ | wiiww 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Expected cash flows, growth and risk. Go ahead and incorporate that in those 3 variables... lets see what you know before I bother replying. | |
| ▲ | nemomarx 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | is no longer being able to sell it to half of your market good, financially? | |
| ▲ | surgical_fire 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | That is a good marketing headline, but for it to work the model has to become available again in a reasonable timeframe. Otherwise people try other cheaper models, and they find out those models work perfectly for what they need. |
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| ▲ | dminik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The A.I. company’s advisers are pushing its chief executive, Sam Altman, to move slowly after SpaceX’s stock has been volatile and as the start-up grapples with financial challenges. Surely if your company isn't just blowing smoke then you have nothing to worry about. Or is this an admission that the insane valuation for these companies is currently just bullshit? |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > if your company isn't just blowing smoke then you have nothing to worry about Not really. Plenty of solid companies have to wring their hands around IPO timing based on market conditions. Sometimes, this is due to valuation multiples. Sometimes it's due to fads, e.g. investors preferring capital-structure efficiency versus low leverage. | | |
| ▲ | dminik an hour ago | parent [-] | | I mean, my comment wasn't necessarily meant to be some insightful analysis. But I do find it weird that OpenAI has seemingly gone from racing Anthropic to "maybe in 6 months" in the span of a week. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-] | | > OpenAI has seemingly gone from racing Anthropic to "maybe in 6 months" in the span of a week When was the last time someone seriously asked if OpenAI was going to go public before Anthropic? For me, it's been at least months, maybe closer to a year. The corporate-governance complexity drove half of that, momentum the other half, and messaging from both companies having been consistent with that timeline for months sealed the deal. |
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| ▲ | sharadov 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I was really hoping that they Ipoed this year, so we can see their stock shoot up and down in flames, and we're really done with them and Sam Altman, once and for all. |
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| ▲ | fragmede 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | While spcx has room to go up or down from where it is today, the reality is it that didn't drop like a rock on IPO day, so wall street bets vibes-based online "analysis" investing is only good for paper money. |
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| ▲ | int32_64 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| AI exits in America probably have a political cliff approaching fast as populist backlash will hit them, or perhaps they see political winds favorable to regulatory capture in the future and are waiting for that? |
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| ▲ | koolala 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Maybe they want a Mythos level model first. |
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| ▲ | wmf 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Good news: GPT-5.6 has been export restricted. | | |
| ▲ | tristanj 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is patently false, don't spread rumors. Voluntarily delaying release at the request of the government is not the same as imposing export controls. | |
| ▲ | koolala an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Where are the anecdotes about it hacking the NSA though? | | |
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| ▲ | sourcegrift an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's over. Open models and chinese models will make fast progress and that nvidia+ms 128gb monster is what everyone will end up buying. sama can go back to running scams. |
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| ▲ | babelfish 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > up from the company’s last private valuation of $730 million typo |
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| ▲ | therobots927 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Huh. I wonder if everyone breathlessly defending OAI and disparaging Ed Zitron on here a couple weeks ago is ready to admit they were wrong? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550465 This comment is just great, starting off with: “To be honest I almost think the numbers are irrelevant...” Here’s another gem: “My takeaway from this is that it's incredibly validating as a business model. Inference is _highly_ profitable...” Thanks for the laughs. It’s a small compensation for the immense damage you’ve all done to the industry and more importantly the economy (which you will deny until the very end of the cycle like the cowards and frauds that you are). You know, Ed actually did Scam a favor by leaking those numbers and saving him the embarrassment of filing an S1 (something Wario still hasn’t gotten up the nerve to do yet by the way). |
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| ▲ | simianwords 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | ... you think this is vindicating Ed Zitron? The dude is on a spree claiming the bubble will burst any time soon [1]. In fact Ed Zitron predicted that OpenAI will IPO sooner and not later [2]! This whole post is yet again another thing that he got wrong. [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ed+zitron+bubbl... [2] https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-cfo-news > It's clear that both OpenAI and Anthropic are rushing toward a public offering so that their CEOs can cash out, and that their underlying economics are equal parts problematic and worrying. | | |
| ▲ | jrflowers 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I like that people will post stuff like “Ed Zitron is always wrong! Look at this wrong claim he made!” and then link to him not making that claim at all. “Rushing toward a public offering so that their CEOs can cash out” is not a prediction of a specific time to IPO, and is supported by OpenAI’s own public statement two months after that was published https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/ | | |
| ▲ | simianwords 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't even know what you are trying to say, I opened your link > We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best. So... OpenAI has specifically said that they have not decided on the timing and it may be a while. And now we have news that they are waiting till next year. What do you think is supported by whom? Being more clear and concrete helps the discussion. | | |
| ▲ | jrflowers 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >it may be a while Or sooner. It says sooner or later. It only means “later” if you don’t read the “sooner” part. Choosing to read selectively isn’t One Weird Trick To Own A Blogger. “This post about submitting a draft S1 to the SEC is proof that they don’t want to go public” lmao | | |
| ▲ | lovich 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Choosing to read selectively isn’t One Weird Trick To Own A Blogger. I mean it’s pretty obvious that the pro AI as an industry wide replacement people think it is One Weird Trick. I’ve still yet to see any of them articulate how they are going to reach profitability without resorting to the meme of projecting that their baby has doubled size in 6 months so is projected to reach 10.5 trillion pounds by the age of 10. |
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| ▲ | CodingJeebus an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | OpenAI did confidentially file their S-1, which costs a ton of money to put together for the bankers and regulators to review. They did test the market and it looks like either the banks or people directly around Altman told him not to move forward. That doesn't mean Zitron was wrong about OpenAI IPOing. They took steps in that direction and then decided not to move forward. That's not his fault. As far as the bubble bursting soon, we are starting to see some pretty concerning signals. The South Korean stock market triggered trading circuit breakers twice earlier this week to stop a runaway selloff in the tech sector. For reference, circuit breakers have only been triggered in the Korean market 10 times in history, and only 5 times ever in the US markets. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/world-indices/articles/kos... | | |
| ▲ | dofm 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | FWIW I think there's a "Y2K never happened" future here, where the bubble never bursts (in the sense of some insane market valuation proving to be lunatic) but everyone does what they can to make sure it doesn't burst on them, and they pull back and the bubble just deflates. Take for example the action on SPACs that made the "SPAC everything" era end. |
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| ▲ | therobots927 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | OAI canceling an IPO this year a week after he released their dogshit financials is not a coincidence and yes it does vindicate him. He’s not shorting the market or calling a top. He’s saying that the bubble will pop because the underlying business model is and always will have a NEGATIVE ROI. Unless you’re speculating on semiconductor stocks the difference is irrelevant. Do me a favor and tell me how much of the 1,000,000,000,000 spent / committed to a datacenter buildout has been returned to shareholders / creditors? | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > OAI canceling an IPO this year a week after he released their dogshit financials There is zero evidence of any causal link between him and this. The obvious one, instead, is SpaceX's volatility. > Do me a favor and tell me how much of the 1,000,000,000,000 spent / committed to a datacenter buildout has been returned to shareholders / investors? If Anthropic also delays its IPO, you'll have a point. | | |
| ▲ | dofm 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > There is zero evidence of any causal link between him and this. How would there be? He's a blogger and a youtuber, they are a private company with secretive financials, bankers involved in pre-IPO work don't talk openly. Nobody is going to say "we only decided not to do this because of a youtuber" because that would make them look like the ill-informed, over-eager idiots they've been to let this nonsense get this far. Why would there be any concrete evidence it was down to him specifically, and not, say, dozens of finance people saying "what the *fuck* is that marketing budget about — that's so large it looks like something's been hidden in it" after reading about it from him and the FT and everyone else who was involved. | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In what way is SpaceX's volatility an obvious cause? It would be one thing if SpaceX was down from its IPO price, but it's not, it's just down from a post-IPO peak. To me this has all the hallmarks of a backfilled rationalization. > OpenAI’s advisers presented company executives with the option of waiting until 2027 to go public with a $1 trillion valuation, or lower the targeted valuation for a quicker I.P.O. Mr. Altman, said one person in contact with him on the topic, responded that any change to the trillion-dollar valuation was a nonstarter. I really don't know how to read this and reach any conclusion other than, OpenAI leadership won't accept what financial analysts consider to be a rational valuation of its stock. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > In what way is SpaceX's volatility an obvious cause? Let me amend: it's a more-obvious cause given it's pertinent new information in a way Zitron partially leaking financials many institutional investors have already seen is not. > don't know how to read this and reach any conclusion other than, OpenAI leadership won't accept what financial analysts consider to be a rational valuation of its stock Neither did SpaceX and, as you say, it's trading above its IPO price and placing tens of billions of dollars of debt. I think Zitron's analysis was on the balance good, though it didn't say a lot of what folks on here seem to have taken away (e.g., about OpenAI's inference being marginally unprofitable). It seems he's got a bit of a cult of personality around him, which makes me inherently sceptical. But it's a pretty ridiculous reach to claim OpenAI had to delay its IPO because of him versus the much-more visible and talked about thing. | | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest an hour ago | parent [-] | | Perhaps we're really on the same page. I don't think OpenAI executives read the Zitron article and said "oh my god now we can't IPO!"; I think they're both downstream of the underlying bad financials, which SpaceX only managed to mitigate due to the Elon Musk personality trade. (And I agree that this theory falsifiably predicts Anthropic will also find a reason to delay.) | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-] | | > they're both downstream of the underlying bad financials, which SpaceX only managed to mitigate due to the Elon Musk personality trade Idk, I'm still sceptical how someone could look at the market right now and conclude that it's suddenly hyperaware of financial metrics. For whatever reason–maybe it's corporate-structure complexity, maybe it's lawsuits–OpenAI was always at the end of the pack of AI IPOs. If SK Hynix take August and Anthropic September or October, that would mean a 2026 OpenAI IPO would have to (a) coincide with one of those or (b) go to market during an election/post-election fiasco and/or the holidays. The realistic options were July or October, the latter being between a likely Anthropic IPO and the midterms. The timing just doesn't make sense and maybe someone realise that. |
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| ▲ | therobots927 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | SpaceX demonstrated that the public markets have a limited tolerance for a multi-trillion dollar company that doesn’t make any money. Ed’s leaks demonstrated that OAI doesn’t make money (even on inference). Put these two together and I think the conclusion is pretty obvious. | | |
| ▲ | jsnell 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Ed’s leaks demonstrated that OAI doesn’t make money (even on inference). They did not. | | |
| ▲ | lovich 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh? They’re profitable now? Or anywhere close to it? | | |
| ▲ | jsnell an hour ago | parent [-] | | No, but the GP wasn't satisfied with that, and had to put in a snide "even on inference" parenthetical. The leaks showed inference having positive margins. The Zitronites will say that the data is fraudulent, and OpenAI must have classified some of their inference as marketing, or R&D, or some other wacky theory of the week. But the actual data does not show that. It is made up. If you want to cherry-pick the worst parts from the leak and disbelieve the more positive ones, it feels like you're not in a great place epistemically... | | |
| ▲ | dofm 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > The leaks showed inference having positive margins. They don't. They show that OpenAI need to people to draw that conclusion, because of course they do. > The Zitronites will say that the data is fraudulent, and OpenAI must have classified some of their inference as marketing, or R&D, or some other wacky theory of the week. But the actual data does not show that. It doesn't? It shows a marketing budget so absolutely mahoosive that it's almost completely implausible, which does make you think — have a percentage of marketing-driven free plan tokens been hidden in there? If not, what the hell is in there? Because it's an insane figure for a company that has benefited from a level of word of mouth that makes
"ChatGPT" broadly synonymous with "AI". Fraudulent is a big claim, of course. I didn't say it. | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Zitronites will say that the data is fraudulent, and OpenAI must have classified some of their inference as marketing, or R&D, or some other wacky theory of the week Which, look, could be true! But it's currently speculation only. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > SpaceX demonstrated that the public markets have a limited tolerance for a multi-trillion dollar company that doesn’t make any money What? How? SpaceX loses oodles of money. It's trading above its IPO, and just filled an oversubscribed bond deal. > Put these two together and I think the conclusion is pretty obvious Zitron has a faithful following. He isn't a broadly-influential analyst. |
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| ▲ | simianwords 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 1. they didn't cancel their IPO and they were deliberate about having the option to time their IPO 2. he has tried over and over again to predict the bubble and peak [1] [2] [3] 3. that OpenAI is filing for an IPO next year is no vindication of Ed's claim when he specifically predicted the opposite (as I showed in the above comment) 4. OpenAI filing for an IPO next year has no bearing on its fundamentals 5. on Datacenters: Anthropic had to lease it from Elon's datacenter because they were too short on capacity and every one was complaining that their limits were too low [1] Ed on 2024, "threaten to begin a collapse that I’ve been predicting since March" https://www.wheresyoured.at/burst-damage/ [2] Ed on 2024, "three quarters to prove itself before the apocalypse comes" https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ [3] Ed on 2024, "things are beginning to collapse" https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/ Edit: the quality of discussion in this website is annoying sometimes.get downvoted for good faith discussion | | |
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