On: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

[delichon]

Someone is paying. OpenAI revenue was $4.3 billion in the first half of this year.

[lm28469 → delichon]

You forgot that part:

> The artificial intelligence firm reported a net loss of US$13.5 billion during the same period

If you sell gold at $10 a gram you'll also make billions in revenues.

[dist-epoch → lm28469]

That loss includes the costs to train the future models.

Like Dario/Anthropic said, every model is highly profitable on it's own, but the company keeps losing money because they always train the next model (which will be highly profitable on it's own).

[emp17344 → dist-epoch]

But even if you remove R&D costs, they’re still billions of dollars short of profitability. That’s not a small hurdle to overcome. And OpenAI has to continue to develop new models to remain relevant.

[boxed → lm28469]

Reminds me of the Icelandic investment banks during the height of the financial bubble. They basically did this.

[sseagull → delichon]

OpenAI "spent" more on sales/marketing and equity compensation than that:

"Other significant costs included $2 billion spent on sales and marketing, nearly doubling what OpenAI spent on sales and marketing in all of 2024. Though not a cash expense, OpenAI also spent nearly $2.5 billion on stock-based equity compensation in the first six months of 2025"

("spent" because the equity is not cash-based)

From https://archive.is/vIrUZ

[cyberpunk → sseagull]

How the fuck does anyone spend 2 billion dollars on sales and marketing. I’ve seen the odd ad for openai but thag number seems completely bananas.

[emp17344 → cyberpunk]

Astroturfing on social media, most likely. The AI hype almost certainly isn’t entirely organic.

[aryehof → cyberpunk]

All that free use by millions of users is sales and marketing.