OpenAI's Sam Altman Defends $1 Trillion+ Spending Commitments, Predicts Steep Revenue Growth, More Products (techcrunch.com)
(Sunday November 02, 2025 @10:53PM (EditorDavid)
from the road-ahead dept.)
- Reference: 0179946218
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/03/0349255/openais-sam-altman-defends-1-trillion-spending-commitments-predicts-steep-revenue-growth-more-products
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/02/sam-altman-says-enough-to-questions-about-openais-revenue/
[1]TechCrunch reports :
> OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the company is doing "well more" than $13 billion in annual revenue — and he sounded a little testy when pressed on how it will pay for its massive spending commitments.
>
> His comments came up [2]during a joint interview on the Bg2 podcast between Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the partnership between their companies. Host Brad Gerstner (who's also founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) brought up [3]reports that OpenAI is currently bringing in around $13 billion in revenue — a sizable amount, but one that's dwarfed by more than $1 trillion in spending commitments for computing infrastructure that OpenAI has made for 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."
Altman's answer continued, making the case for OpenAI's business model. "We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it's going to 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 [4]consumer device business will be a significant and important thing. That AI that can automate science will create huge value...
"We carefully plan, we understand where the technology — where the capability — is going to go, and the products we can build around that and the revenue we can generate. We might screw it up — like, this is the bet that we're making, and we're taking a risk along with that." (That bet-with-risks seems to be the $1.4 trillion in spending commitments — but Altman suggests it's offset by another absolutely certain risk: "If we don't have the compute, we will not be able to generate the revenue or make the models at this kind of scale.")
Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, added his own defense, "as both a partner and an investor. There has not been a single business plan that I've seen from OpenAI that they have put in and not beaten it. So in some sense, this is the one place where in terms of their growth — and just even the business — it's been unbelievable execution, quite frankly..."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/02/sam-altman-says-enough-to-questions-about-openais-revenue/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnl833wXRz0&t=714s
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/14/openai-has-five-years-to-turn-13-billion-into-1-trillion/
[4] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/openai-jony-ive-struggle-with-technical-details-on-secretive-new-ai-gadget/
> OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the company is doing "well more" than $13 billion in annual revenue — and he sounded a little testy when pressed on how it will pay for its massive spending commitments.
>
> His comments came up [2]during a joint interview on the Bg2 podcast between Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the partnership between their companies. Host Brad Gerstner (who's also founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) brought up [3]reports that OpenAI is currently bringing in around $13 billion in revenue — a sizable amount, but one that's dwarfed by more than $1 trillion in spending commitments for computing infrastructure that OpenAI has made for 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."
Altman's answer continued, making the case for OpenAI's business model. "We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it's going to 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 [4]consumer device business will be a significant and important thing. That AI that can automate science will create huge value...
"We carefully plan, we understand where the technology — where the capability — is going to go, and the products we can build around that and the revenue we can generate. We might screw it up — like, this is the bet that we're making, and we're taking a risk along with that." (That bet-with-risks seems to be the $1.4 trillion in spending commitments — but Altman suggests it's offset by another absolutely certain risk: "If we don't have the compute, we will not be able to generate the revenue or make the models at this kind of scale.")
Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, added his own defense, "as both a partner and an investor. There has not been a single business plan that I've seen from OpenAI that they have put in and not beaten it. So in some sense, this is the one place where in terms of their growth — and just even the business — it's been unbelievable execution, quite frankly..."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/02/sam-altman-says-enough-to-questions-about-openais-revenue/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnl833wXRz0&t=714s
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/14/openai-has-five-years-to-turn-13-billion-into-1-trillion/
[4] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/openai-jony-ive-struggle-with-technical-details-on-secretive-new-ai-gadget/
If the tech doesn't progress (Score:3)
by wakeboarder ( 2695839 )
Like they think it will, they'll be digging there own financial grave. I don't think the costs are justified with LLMs, they just don't operate like humans do, the accuracy sucks. Unless they hit it out if the park there will be an AI bubble.
But 1 trillion is a lot, that could buy yearly salaries of 1 million people at a rate of 1 million dollars a year, so really high caliber workers. Or that's 100000 over 10 years. So they'd better be sure that the tech is going to be the equivalent of that kind of work. If it's not they lost the bet.
Re: (Score:2)
by parityshrimp ( 6342140 )
Absolutely. The number is so insane; it's hard to even contemplate. It reminds me that the "con" in con man stands for confidence.
Someone help me (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, someone help me if I start to believe my own bullshit to this extent. I really hope that never happens, but if it does, I hope someone calls me on it and that I listen to them.
Re: (Score:3)
Would you still say this if "believing" your bullshit made you a multi-billionaire?
Re: (Score:2)
Jerry: So, George, how do I beat this lie detector?
George: I'm sorry, Jerry, I can't help you. I can't... It's like saying to Pavarotti, "Teach me to sing like you."
Jerry: All right, well, I gotta go take this test. I can't believe I'm doing this.
George: Jerry, just remember: It's not a lie if you believe it.
Re: (Score:2)
Hehe.
And of course there's the second question that I didn't ask above:
If you did actually become a multi-billionaire by spewing the bullshit that you believed and were called out on it, would you listen?
Or would you go full "pedo guy" and "I believe it is ILLEGAL to CRITICISE ME" on the people who call you out?
Re: (Score:2)
My personal values are such that I don't think I'd get anywhere near the multi-billionaire level on the basis of believing my own bullshit. Chicken and egg problem.
Re: (Score:2)
I hear you, but you're also sort of skirting the question ;)
Re: (Score:2)
I like to think I'd decline. Learning to properly evaluate evidence while writing a master's thesis in a hard science was a formative experience, and I strongly value making decisions on the basis of evidence and reason.
Beyond that, it blows my mind that anyone accumulates more than, say, $10 million and continues to work, much less becomes a billionaire. I would retire tomorrow at a far smaller net worth.
Re: (Score:2)
OpenAI's Sam Altman Uses /. as his Personal Blog Again
Can there be an option added to the config for people to disable seeing Sam Altman's latest brain fart on the front page every time they log on?
It's not bullshit (Score:1)
But it's not a product either. This is meant to replace every worker on the planet.
As the saying goes AI is designed to allow wealth to access skill without skill accessing wealth.
The 1% have decided to dismantle capitalism. You know that question everyone always asks, who's going to buy their products?
Now imagine you are so wealthy that you are approaching something akin to godhood. But literally all of your wealth comes from these filthy consumers that you absolutely despise as lower class bei
Re: (Score:2)
Things got so bad during the great depression that the wealthy feared a proper revolution. This enabled the passage of the new deal.
The scenario you're describing seems a little far fetched, but if something like AI were to replace a large percentage of jobs with no ready substitute, I think that could lead to a scenario analogous to the great depression and the new deal.
> Now imagine you are so wealthy that you are approaching something akin to godhood.
They remain mortal and still have to eat, drink, piss, and shit like the rest of us.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people who became successful did it while believing their own bullshit.>p>
Of course, then there are the people who were failures because they believed it
There are a lot more of the latter.