OpenAI Is a Once-in-a-lifetime Startup

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.

There has never, ever been a company like OpenAI: in growth and, yes, hubris. This week’s funding announcement—$40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation—is the largest ever capital raise by a private company. But what makes San Francisco’s brightest star so unusual is that all of their success and all of their funding isn’t even close enough to get them to where they want to go.

Consider this: If you mark ChatGPT’s launch as the start of its commercial activity, OpenAI, in two short years, has added more revenue and users than Google, Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook did in their first two years combined. (Yes, the company had an incubation period where it mostly focused on research, but its truly mercantile energy didn’t emerge till that launch.) The company currently boasts 500 million weekly active users, recently added a million users in an hour, and has already hit 20 million paying subscribers. Internal revenue projections have the company’s annual earnings growing to $12.7 billion—just three years after ChatGPT’s launch. Yet, to achieve this astonishing growth rate, OpenAI is expected to lose $5 billion dollars this year.

Though public companies routinely add this type of revenue annually, it's unheard of for startups to hit such milestones so early. And it's even more astounding considering OpenAI is simultaneously driving cutting-edge AI research. Every few months, the company announces something astonishing—its new image generation model being just the latest example.

Make email your superpower

Not all emails are created equal—so why does our inbox treat them all the same? Cora is the most human way to email, turning your inbox into a story so you can focus on what matters and getting stuff done instead of on managing your inbox. Cora drafts responses to emails you need to respond to and briefs the rest.

Try Cora today

Want to sponsor Every? Click here.

Yes, competitors at Google, Anthropic, and elsewhere rapidly match OpenAI’s capabilities. And yes, OpenAI has leveraged earlier research from these very peers. But the speed, audacity, and cross-domain success of OpenAI make it singular. It is one of the best AI research labs that is also one of the best consumer companies that is also one of the best B2B SaaS companies. Silicon Valley archetypes normally exist separately; OpenAI embodies them all at once, and in ways we've never seen.

It’s also catapulted AI into global cultural and political prominence. ChatGPT is now searched for more than the NBA or Pornhub, according to Google’s search trends data.

Google Trends data scaled on a range of 0 to 100 based on a topic’s proportion to all searches on all topics. Source: Every illustration.

There are multiple books coming out that detail the company’s palace intrigue. Its policy team is frequently meeting with high-level government officials. Even its infrastructure investments are announced under the watchful gaze of President Trump.

There are some funny caveats with this funding announcement, as there always seems to be with OpenAI. The capital is being delivered in tranches on the basis of performance milestones, which include converting to a for-profit entity by the end of the year. Saying the company has raised $40 billion without any qualifications is kinda like coming home from a second date and telling your roommates that you’ve met your future wife. You may eventually go all the way, but there are some intermediate steps to accomplish first.

The fact remains that it could all vanish overnight. With the capital intensity of its ambitions—a projected $44 billion in losses by 2029, despite what it’s raised—only a trillion-dollar liquidity event will make its investors whole. Its explicit goal of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) is perhaps grand enough to justify belief in such a number. But while we’re all picking our jaws up off the floor at its most recent raise, keep in mind: The company believes it’s just the latest round of many additional rounds that will be necessary to keep moving forward. At some point, though, it’s going to have to deliver on its promise. 

It is too easy to become desensitized to the innovations and big numbers being thrown around. But it’s worth pausing to reflect: There has never been a company like OpenAI before. XAI, Anthropic, and everyone else is just following the playbook that OpenAI is writing. Someone else may still win! It could even be one of the big tech players like Google or Microsoft that controls the market by the end of this song. But we can’t let ourselves become numb to the majesty of this moment. That is what OpenAI means and stands for.

One of one. 

We build AI tools for readers like you. Automate repeat writing with Spiral. Organize files automatically with Sparkle. Write something great with Lex. Deliver yourself from email with Cora.

We also do AI training, adoption, and innovation for companies. Work with us to bring AI into your organization.

Get paid for sharing Every with your friends. Join our referral program.