OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stated that the company’s annual revenue is “well above” $13 billion, and when asked how the company will finance its massive spending commitments, he sounded a little edgy.
His comments came during a joint interview between Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the Bg2 podcast about their companies’ partnership. Host Brad Gerstner (who is also the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) alluded to reports that OpenAI currently has about $13 billion in revenue – a significant amount, but it pales in comparison to the more than $1 trillion OpenAI has committed to spending on computing infrastructure over the next decade.
“First of all, we’re doing well more revenue than that. Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” Altman said, prompting laughs from Nadella. “I just – enough. I think there are a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares.”
“Including myself,” – Gerstner interjected.
Altman then added that there are critics who “talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever that would be thrilled to buy our shares.”
In fact, he said that although there are “not many times” when he wants OpenAI to be a public company, “One of the rare times it’s appealing is when those people are writing these ridiculous ‘OpenAI is about to go out of business’ [posts], I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that.”
Altman acknowledged that there are ways the company “might screw it up” – for example by failing to get access to enough computing resources – but he said that “revenue is growing steeply.”
“We are taking a forward bet that it will continue to grow, and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science will create huge value,” he added.
Nadella also claimed that OpenAI has “beaten” every business plan that it’s given Microsoft as an investor.
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