>and OpenAI can lose 11 billion in a quarter and Microsoft still backs them.
For Microsoft, and the other hyperscalers supporting OpenAI, they're all absolutely dependent on OpenAI's success. They can realistically survive through the difficult times, if the bubble bursts because of a minor player - for example if Coreweave or Mistral shuts down. But if the bubble bursts because the most visible symbol of AI's future collapses, the value-destruction for Microsoft's shareholders will be 100x larger than OpenAI's quarterly losses. The question for Microsoft is literally as fundamental as "do we want to wipe $1tn off our market cap, or eat $11bn losses per quarter for a few years?" and the answer is pretty straightforward.
Altman has played an absolute blinder by making the success of his company a near-existential issue for several of the largest companies to have ever existed.
> Altman has played an absolute blinder by making the success of his company a near-existential issue for several of the largest companies to have ever existed.
Yeah true, the whole pivot from non-profit to Too Big to Fail is pretty amazing tbh.
They’re dependent on usage of their cloud. I don’t agree that they are as dependent on OAI as you suggest. Ultimately, we’ve unlocked a new paradigm and people need GPUs to do things - regardless of whether that GPU is running OAI branded software or not.
Why? Microsoft has permanent, royalty free access to the frontier models. If OpenAI went under, MSFT would continue hosting GPT-5 on Azure, GitHub Copilot, etc. and not be affected in the slightest.
For Microsoft, and the other hyperscalers supporting OpenAI, they're all absolutely dependent on OpenAI's success. They can realistically survive through the difficult times, if the bubble bursts because of a minor player - for example if Coreweave or Mistral shuts down. But if the bubble bursts because the most visible symbol of AI's future collapses, the value-destruction for Microsoft's shareholders will be 100x larger than OpenAI's quarterly losses. The question for Microsoft is literally as fundamental as "do we want to wipe $1tn off our market cap, or eat $11bn losses per quarter for a few years?" and the answer is pretty straightforward.
Altman has played an absolute blinder by making the success of his company a near-existential issue for several of the largest companies to have ever existed.