OpenAI Leans Toward Waiting Until Next Year for IPO

(nytimes.com)

48 points | by mfiguiere 2 hours ago

8 comments

  • cdrnsf 1 hour ago
    > The A.I. company’s advisers are pushing its chief executive, Sam Altman, to move slowly after SpaceX’s stock has been volatile and as the start-up grapples with financial challenges.

    SpaceX's stock volatile? It's a shame nobody saw that coming.

  • cmiles8 26 minutes ago
    The window has basically closed for them for the time being. The business math just isn’t there.

    The best option at this point is kick the can down the road and hope market sentiment improves next year. Not much signal that it will, and quite a lot of signal the sentiment only declines, but pumping the brakes is the least worst option on the table.

    • JumpCrisscross 25 minutes ago
      > window has basically closed for them for the time being. The business math just isn’t there

      Unless Anthropic also cancels its IPO, this probably isn't it.

      • cmiles8 21 minutes ago
        The math doesn’t help Anthropic either but the market views these two companies very differently at the moment. Anthropic is seen as having momentum. Open AI is seen as having likely peaked. That makes a huge difference when pitching an IPO.
        • JumpCrisscross 3 minutes ago
          > but the market views these two companies very differently at the moment. Anthropic is seen as having momentum. Open AI is seen as having likely peaked

          What are you basing this on? Both are currently doing rounds/tenders that are placing without problems.

          The media treats these two differently, as do financial influencers. But I'd be careful about conflating either of them with the market.

        • wiiww 7 minutes ago
          Agree but Anthropic momentum is fading too.

          Open source is starting to slowly become a source of frustration for frontier labs In the discussion around value for money.

  • dminik 51 minutes ago
    > The A.I. company’s advisers are pushing its chief executive, Sam Altman, to move slowly after SpaceX’s stock has been volatile and as the start-up grapples with financial challenges.

    Surely if your company isn't just blowing smoke then you have nothing to worry about. Or is this an admission that the insane valuation for these companies is currently just bullshit?

    • JumpCrisscross 27 minutes ago
      > if your company isn't just blowing smoke then you have nothing to worry about

      Not really. Plenty of solid companies have to wring their hands around IPO timing based on market conditions. Sometimes, this is due to valuation multiples. Sometimes it's due to fads, e.g. investors preferring capital-structure efficiency versus low leverage.

      • dminik 2 minutes ago
        I mean, my comment wasn't necessarily meant to be some insightful analysis. But I do find it weird that OpenAI has seemingly gone from racing Anthropic to "maybe in 6 months" in the span of a week.
  • int32_64 11 minutes ago
    AI exits in America probably have a political cliff approaching fast as populist backlash will hit them, or perhaps they see political winds favorable to regulatory capture in the future and are waiting for that?
  • sharadov 19 minutes ago
    I was really hoping that they Ipoed this year, so we can see their stock shoot up and down in flames, and we're really done with them and Sam Altman, once and for all.
  • koolala 33 minutes ago
    Maybe they want a Mythos level model first.
    • wmf 25 minutes ago
      Good news: GPT-5.6 has been export restricted.
      • koolala 14 minutes ago
        Where are the anecdotes about it hacking the NSA though?
        • wmf 9 minutes ago
          It's not even out yet. Give it a second.
  • babelfish 1 hour ago
    > up from the company’s last private valuation of $730 million

    typo

  • therobots927 1 hour ago
    Huh. I wonder if everyone breathlessly defending OAI and disparaging Ed Zitron on here a couple weeks ago is ready to admit they were wrong?

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550465

    This comment is just great, starting off with:

    “To be honest I almost think the numbers are irrelevant...”

    Here’s another gem:

    “My takeaway from this is that it's incredibly validating as a business model. Inference is _highly_ profitable...”

    Thanks for the laughs. It’s a small compensation for the immense damage you’ve all done to the industry and more importantly the economy (which you will deny until the very end of the cycle like the cowards and frauds that you are).

    You know, Ed actually did Scam a favor by leaking those numbers and saving him the embarrassment of filing an S1 (something Wario still hasn’t gotten up the nerve to do yet by the way).

    • simianwords 1 hour ago
      ... you think this is vindicating Ed Zitron? The dude is on a spree claiming the bubble will burst any time soon [1]. In fact Ed Zitron predicted that OpenAI will IPO sooner and not later [2]! This whole post is yet again another thing that he got wrong.

      [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ed+zitron+bubbl...

      [2] https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-cfo-news

      > It's clear that both OpenAI and Anthropic are rushing toward a public offering so that their CEOs can cash out, and that their underlying economics are equal parts problematic and worrying.

      • CodingJeebus 0 minutes ago
        OpenAI did confidentially file their S-1, which costs a ton of money to put together for the bankers and regulators to review. They did test the market and it looks like either the banks or people directly around Altman told him not to move forward. That doesn't mean Zitron was wrong about OpenAI IPOing. They took steps in that direction and then decided not to move forward. That's not his fault.

        As far as the bubble bursting soon, we are starting to see some pretty concerning signals. The South Korean stock market triggered trading circuit breakers twice earlier this week to stop a runaway selloff in the tech sector. For reference, circuit breakers have only been triggered in the Korean market 10 times in history, and only 5 times ever in the US markets.

        https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/world-indices/articles/kos...

      • jrflowers 1 hour ago
        I like that people will post stuff like “Ed Zitron is always wrong! Look at this wrong claim he made!” and then link to him not making that claim at all.

        “Rushing toward a public offering so that their CEOs can cash out” is not a prediction of a specific time to IPO, and is supported by OpenAI’s own public statement two months after that was published

        https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/

        • simianwords 57 minutes ago
          I don't even know what you are trying to say, I opened your link

          > We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.

          So... OpenAI has specifically said that they have not decided on the timing and it may be a while. And now we have news that they are waiting till next year.

          What do you think is supported by whom? Being more clear and concrete helps the discussion.

          • jrflowers 51 minutes ago
            >it may be a while

            Or sooner. It says sooner or later. It only means “later” if you don’t read the “sooner” part. Choosing to read selectively isn’t One Weird Trick To Own A Blogger. “This post about submitting a draft S1 to the SEC is proof that they don’t want to go public” lmao

            • lovich 21 minutes ago
              > Choosing to read selectively isn’t One Weird Trick To Own A Blogger.

              I mean it’s pretty obvious that the pro AI as an industry wide replacement people think it is One Weird Trick. I’ve still yet to see any of them articulate how they are going to reach profitability without resorting to the meme of projecting that their baby has doubled size in 6 months so is projected to reach 10.5 trillion pounds by the age of 10.

      • therobots927 1 hour ago
        OAI canceling an IPO this year a week after he released their dogshit financials is not a coincidence and yes it does vindicate him.

        He’s not shorting the market or calling a top. He’s saying that the bubble will pop because the underlying business model is and always will have a NEGATIVE ROI. Unless you’re speculating on semiconductor stocks the difference is irrelevant.

        Do me a favor and tell me how much of the 1,000,000,000,000 spent / committed to a datacenter buildout has been returned to shareholders / creditors?

        • JumpCrisscross 54 minutes ago
          > OAI canceling an IPO this year a week after he released their dogshit financials

          There is zero evidence of any causal link between him and this. The obvious one, instead, is SpaceX's volatility.

          > Do me a favor and tell me how much of the 1,000,000,000,000 spent / committed to a datacenter buildout has been returned to shareholders / investors?

          If Anthropic also delays its IPO, you'll have a point.

          • SpicyLemonZest 42 minutes ago
            In what way is SpaceX's volatility an obvious cause? It would be one thing if SpaceX was down from its IPO price, but it's not, it's just down from a post-IPO peak. To me this has all the hallmarks of a backfilled rationalization.

            > OpenAI’s advisers presented company executives with the option of waiting until 2027 to go public with a $1 trillion valuation, or lower the targeted valuation for a quicker I.P.O. Mr. Altman, said one person in contact with him on the topic, responded that any change to the trillion-dollar valuation was a nonstarter.

            I really don't know how to read this and reach any conclusion other than, OpenAI leadership won't accept what financial analysts consider to be a rational valuation of its stock.

            • JumpCrisscross 38 minutes ago
              > In what way is SpaceX's volatility an obvious cause?

              Let me amend: it's a more-obvious cause given it's pertinent new information in a way Zitron partially leaking financials many institutional investors have already seen is not.

              > don't know how to read this and reach any conclusion other than, OpenAI leadership won't accept what financial analysts consider to be a rational valuation of its stock

              Neither did SpaceX and, as you say, it's trading above its IPO price and placing tens of billions of dollars of debt.

              I think Zitron's analysis was on the balance good, though it didn't say a lot of what folks on here seem to have taken away (e.g., about OpenAI's inference being marginally unprofitable). It seems he's got a bit of a cult of personality around him, which makes me inherently sceptical. But it's a pretty ridiculous reach to claim OpenAI had to delay its IPO because of him versus the much-more visible and talked about thing.

              • SpicyLemonZest 7 minutes ago
                Perhaps we're really on the same page. I don't think OpenAI executives read the Zitron article and said "oh my god now we can't IPO!"; I think they're both downstream of the underlying bad financials, which SpaceX only managed to mitigate due to the Elon Musk personality trade. (And I agree that this theory falsifiably predicts Anthropic will also find a reason to delay.)
          • therobots927 50 minutes ago
            SpaceX demonstrated that the public markets have a limited tolerance for a multi-trillion dollar company that doesn’t make any money.

            Ed’s leaks demonstrated that OAI doesn’t make money (even on inference).

            Put these two together and I think the conclusion is pretty obvious.

            • jsnell 40 minutes ago
              > Ed’s leaks demonstrated that OAI doesn’t make money (even on inference).

              They did not.

              • lovich 19 minutes ago
                Oh? They’re profitable now? Or anywhere close to it?
            • JumpCrisscross 42 minutes ago
              > SpaceX demonstrated that the public markets have a limited tolerance for a multi-trillion dollar company that doesn’t make any money

              What? How? SpaceX loses oodles of money. It's trading above its IPO, and just filled an oversubscribed bond deal.

              > Put these two together and I think the conclusion is pretty obvious

              Zitron has a faithful following. He isn't a broadly-influential analyst.

        • simianwords 1 hour ago
          1. they didn't cancel their IPO and they were deliberate about having the option to time their IPO

          2. he has tried over and over again to predict the bubble and peak [1] [2] [3]

          3. that OpenAI is filing for an IPO next year is no vindication of Ed's claim when he specifically predicted the opposite (as I showed in the above comment)

          4. OpenAI filing for an IPO next year has no bearing on its fundamentals

          5. on Datacenters: Anthropic had to lease it from Elon's datacenter because they were too short on capacity and every one was complaining that their limits were too low

          [1] Ed on 2024, "threaten to begin a collapse that I’ve been predicting since March" https://www.wheresyoured.at/burst-damage/

          [2] Ed on 2024, "three quarters to prove itself before the apocalypse comes" https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/

          [3] Ed on 2024, "things are beginning to collapse" https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/

          Edit: the quality of discussion in this website is annoying sometimes.get downvoted for good faith discussion

          • JumpCrisscross 26 minutes ago
            > Edit: the quality of discussion in this website is annoying sometimes.get downvoted for good faith discussion

            Ignore it and don't do this: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

            https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html