Complex forecast topic: See how that startup is growing into public company
🟩 The Path to IPO: OpenAI > #1 > #2 > Latest
☑️ #50 Oct 17, 2023
Accel Euroscape 2023
accel.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] Cloud is eating software...and MSFT is eating cloud...dominating cloud, security and AI
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☑️ #49 Pending update
OpenAI and ChatGPT Lawsuit List
originality.ai: We looked at all lawsuits occurring against OpenAI and listed them below. In addition to the relevant detail we had a lawyer provide some commentary. This list will remain updated as an easy-to-reference location for any lawsuits against OpenAI ordered by date (oldest to newest).
Authors Guild et al v. OpenAI Inc. et al - September 19, 2023.
Chabon v. OpenAI, Inc. - September 8, 2023.
OpenAI, Inc. v. Open Artificial Intelligence, Inc. - August 4, 2023.
Doe 3 et al v. GitHub, Inc. et al - November 10, 2022.
DOE 1 et al v. GitHub, Inc. et al - November 3, 2022.
T. et al v. OpenAI LP et al - September 5, 2023.
Walters v. OpenAI LLC - July 14, 2023.
Silverman, et al v. OpenAI Inc. - July 7, 2023.
Tremblay v. OpenAI Inc. - June 28, 2023.
PM et al v. OpenAI LP et al - June 28, 2023.
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☑️ #48 Oct 12, 2023 🔴 rumor
OpenAI’s Revenue Crossed $1.3 Billion Annualized Rate, CEO Tells Staff
OpenAI's revenue-earning pace has accelerated to $1.3 billion per year.
theinformation.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] ChatGPT maker OpenAI is generating revenue at a pace of $1.3 billion a year, CEO Sam Altman told staff this week, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. Altman’s remark implies the company is generating more than $100 million per month, up 30% from this summer, when the Microsoft-backed startup generated revenue at a $1 billion-a-year pace.
The revenue pace, largely from subscriptions to its conversational chatbot, represents remarkable growth since the company launched a paid version of ChatGPT in February. For all of last year, the company’s revenue was just $28 million. Since the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI has become a closely watched barometer of demand for artificial intelligence that can help software developers code faster and help business managers quickly summarize documents or generate blog posts and advertising materials.
🔹Related content:
OpenAI Passes $1 Billion Revenue Pace as Big Companies Boost AI Spending: [Transcription] [Excerpts] [8/29/23] OpenAI is currently on pace to generate more than $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months from the sale of artificial intelligence software and the computing capacity that powers it. That’s far ahead of revenue projections the company previously shared with its shareholders, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
The billion-dollar revenue figure implies that the Microsoft-backed company, which was valued on paper at $27 billion when investors bought stock from existing shareholders earlier this year, is generating more than $80 million in revenue per month. OpenAI generated just $28 million in revenue last year before it started charging for its groundbreaking chatbot, ChatGPT. The rapid growth in revenue suggests app developers and companies—including secretive ones like Jane Street, a Wall Street firm—are increasingly finding ways to use OpenAI’s conversational text technology to make money or save on costs. Microsoft, Google and countless other businesses trying to make money from the same technology are closely watching OpenAI’s growth.
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☑️ #47 Oct 6, 2023
ChatGPT's Revenue is Growing but Growth is Slowing Down
appfigures.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] The official ChatGPT app from OpenAI has been on the App Store since May and Google Play since July. And even though it's late to the game itcreated, the app's revenue has been growing double-digit month over month.
September managed to break two records for the app's revenue. Only one is good, though.
15.6M people downloaded OpenAI's ChatGPT app in September, according to our estimates.
🔹Continue reading | Related content:
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☑️ #46 Oct 6, 2023 🔴 rumor
Exclusive: ChatGPT-owner OpenAI is exploring making its own AI chips
reuters.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] SF/WASHINGTON, Oct 5 - OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is exploring making its own artificial intelligence chips and has gone as far as evaluating a potential acquisition target, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.
The company has not yet decided to move ahead, according to recent internal discussions described to Reuters. However, since at least last year it discussed various options to solve the shortage of expensive AI chips that OpenAI relies on, according to people familiar with the matter.
🔹Related content (“scarcity of GPUs”): OpenAI’s plans according to Sam Altman by Humanloop
Running ChatGPT is very expensive for the company. Each query costs roughly 4 cents, according to an analysis from Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. If ChatGPT queries grow to a tenth the scale of Google search, it would require roughly $48.1 billion worth of GPUs initially and about $16 billion worth of chips a year to keep operational.
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☑️ #45 Oct 1, 2023 🟠 opinion
The way Sam Altman structured OpenAI's equity model makes me think he was an options trader in a past life
@0xjaypeg: Heard on the All In podcast that OpenAI capped the upside on their equity for investors, legit couldn't believe it The way Sam Altman structured OpenAI's equity model makes me think he was an options trader in a past life Here's a preview with my full write-up linked below
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☑️ #44 Sep 28, 2023 🟠 opinion
OpenAI's Limits
newnetland: Much is still unclear about how AI will differentiate, but one can already see clear structural boundaries for OpenAI.
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☑️ #43 Sep 27, 2023 🟠 opinion
Top 5 reasons OpenAI is probably not worth 90 billion dollars
Marcus on AI: Are OpenAI employees unloading at the moment of peak AI hype?
The profit isn’t there.
There is a ton of pending litigation.
There’s not a huge moat here to protect OpenAI from competitors.
Big customers (AAPL 0.00%↑ JPM 0.00%↑…) are still skittish.
LLMs will likely never deliver on the promise that they are somehow close to AGI.
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☑️ #42 Sep 26, 2023 🔴 rumor
OpenAI seeks new valuation of up to $90 billion in sale of existing shares
wsj.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] Startup was valued at about $29 billion in share sale earlier this year.
OpenAI is talking to investors about a possible share sale that would value the artificial-intelligence startup behind ChatGPT at between $80 billion to $90 billion, almost triple its level earlier this year, people familiar with the discussions said.
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☑️ #41 Sep 11, 2023
OpenAI Secures ChatGPT.com
domaininvesting.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] It appears that a settlement has been reached between OpenAI and Site Matrix. ChatGPT.com is now forwarding to OpenAI’s website. In addition, the Whois record for ChatGPT.com is once again private. I do not believe the registrant would have the ability to change anything related to the Whois record while a dispute is ongoing, so that indicates the dispute was resolved.
At the time of publication, the WIPO website indicates the case is still active, so I will keep an eye on it to confirm this is what happened.
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☑️ #40 Sep 6, 2023
Two million developers
globaldata.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] Please join us for our first developer conference, OpenAI DevDay, on November 6, 2023 in San Francisco.
The one-day event will bring hundreds of developers from around the world together with the team at OpenAI to preview new tools and exchange ideas. In-person attendees will also be able to join breakout sessions led by members of OpenAI’s technical staff.
Since launching our API in 2020, we’ve continuously updated it to include our most advanced models, making it easier than ever for developers to integrate cutting-edge AI into their projects with a simple API call. Today, over 2 million developers are using GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL·E and Whisper for a wide range of use cases—from integrating smart assistants into existing applications to building entirely new applications and services that weren't possible before.
🔹Continue reading | OpenAI Dev Day
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☑️ #39 Aug 31, 2023
Lab: Chat with Pi.ai (Inflection-1)
pi.ai: [Transcription] [Excerpts] THey there, great to meet you. I’m Pi, your personal AI. My goal is to be useful, friendly and fun. Ask me for advice, for answers, or let’s talk about whatever’s on your mind. How's your day going?
Disruptive Companies: OpenAI
Sector: Generative AI
Date: 8/31/23
◻️◽️▫️ INPUT [1]
Do you think there will be trillion-dollar native generative-AI- based companies?
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▫️◽️◻️ OUTPUT
Wow, that’s a really interesting question! And an extremely hard one to answer. But based on the impressive progress we’ve seen in the last few years, I think it's possible, but not without overcoming a bunch of challenges. Generative AI is already changing many industries, from software engineering to design and content creation, so I could see how the current trends could eventually lead to some companies in this space achieving massive valuations. But, there's still a lot of technical, societal, and legal challenges to overcome. Do you have a view on the matter?
Generative AI is quickly becoming a vital part of many industries and sectors, and has the potential to generate tons of value. That said, there are several barriers to reaching a valuation that high. Generative AI is largely in its infancy and many of its benefits and drawbacks remain unknown. In addition, there’s lots of scrutiny around issues like ethics and bias in generative AI systems.
◻️◽️▫️ INPUT [2]
If so, would you venture to predict that OpenAI will be one of them?
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▫️◽️◻️ OUTPUT
I think OpenAI has a great chance of becoming a massive and highly successful company. But, whether it'll be worth a trillion dollars is very difficult to predict. OpenAI is well-positioned to succeed given its technical expertise, resources, and leadership team. But as I mentioned, there are many factors that could influence the future success of OpenAI and other AI startups. I think we'll just have to wait and see how things play out! Do you have any particular reasons why you think OpenAI will succeed?
◻️◽️▫️ INPUT [3]
Considering it a disruptive research team focused now on revenues and profits because venture fundings and grant-makers ambitions, maybe could you elaborate an investment thesis and vision for the generative AI landscape?
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▫️◽️◻️ OUTPUT
I think that's a really interesting question. As I mentioned, it's hard to predict exactly how the landscape will evolve, but I could try to offer a hypothesis based on my current knowledge. I think that there will be a lot of consolidation in the space, with the most successful AI companies acquiring smaller AI startups, and even larger non-AI companies starting to make strategic acquisitions. I also think we'll start to see generative AI applied to many different industries and applications. Some obvious areas would be content creation, software engineering, and design. But I think we'll also see novel applications that we can't even imagine today.
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☑️ #38 Aug 29, 2023
ChatGPT dominates LLM mentions on social media in 2023, Bard distant second, reveals GlobalData
globaldata.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] In the dynamic landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs), OpenAI’s ChatGPT has emerged as the frontrunner with an impressive 89.9% share of voice on platforms like Twitter and Reddit among the top seven LLMs during 2023 (1 January to 22 August), reveals the Social Media Analytics Platform of GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
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☑️ #37 Aug 29, 2023 🔴 rumor
OpenAI Passes $1 Billion Revenue Pace as Big Companies Boost AI Spending
theinformation.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] OpenAI is currently on pace to generate more than $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months from the sale of artificial intelligence software and the computing capacity that powers it. That’s far ahead of revenue projections the company previously shared with its shareholders, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
The billion-dollar revenue figure implies that the Microsoft-backed company, which was valued on paper at $27 billion when investors bought stock from existing shareholders earlier this year, is generating more than $80 million in revenue per month. OpenAI generated just $28 million in revenue last year before it started charging for its groundbreaking chatbot, ChatGPT. The rapid growth in revenue suggests app developers and companies—including secretive ones like Jane Street, a Wall Street firm—are increasingly finding ways to use OpenAI’s conversational text technology to make money or save on costs. Microsoft, Google and countless other businesses trying to make money from the same technology are closely watching OpenAI’s growth.
🔹Continue reading | Secondary source: The Decoder
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“chat.openai.com” | Similarweb (July 2023)
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☑️ #36 Aug 29, 2023 🟠 opinion
The Contrarian Strategy of OpenAI
matt-rickard.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] All unsuccessful startups are alike; each successful startup is successful in its own way.
Sam Altman reflected a few months ago on the advice he’s given over the years and, ultimately, what has led him to (even more) success with OpenAI.
🔹Continue reading | Related content:
Sam Altman: “honestly, I feel so bad about the advice I gave while running YC I’ve been thinking about deleting my entire blog” (20:24)
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☑️ #35 Aug 16, 2023
First Public Acquisition: OpenAI acquired Global Illumination for an undisclosed amount
openai.com: [Transcription] OpenAI has acquired the team at Global Illumination, a company founded by Thomas Dimson, Taylor Gordon, and Joey Flynn. The entire team has joined OpenAI to work on our core products including ChatGPT. Global Illumination is a company that has been leveraging AI to build creative tools, infrastructure, and digital experiences. The team previously designed and built products early on at Instagram and Facebook and have also made significant contributions at YouTube, Google, Pixar, Riot Games, and other notable companies. We’re very excited for the impact they’ll have here at OpenAI.
🔹Related content: OpenAI Just Bought a Game Studio—But Why?
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☑️ #34 Aug 14, 2023
A fake press release claiming that investment firm Ripplewood is putting $1 billion into OpenAI appeared on the website of the London Stock Exchange
acceswire.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] Ripplewood About to Invest 1 BN in AI
FRANKFURT, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / August 14, 2023 / One of the largest fintech investors in the industry finally wants to buy auspicious AI software. As Bloomberg sources report, private equity giant Ripplewood plans to invest $1 billion in OpenAI.
🔹Related content: Fake $1 billion OpenAI investment news appears on London Stock Exchange website
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☑️ #33 Jul 27, 2023 🟠 opinion
The ChatGPT revolution is another tech fantasy
disconnect.blog: Generative AI will enrich investors and be deployed against everyone else.
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☑️ #32 Jun 28, 2023
OpenAI raised a total of $14B
cbinsights.com: OpenAI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
When was OpenAI founded? OpenAI was founded in 2015.
Where is OpenAI's headquarters? OpenAI's headquarters is located at San Francisco.
What is OpenAI's latest funding round? OpenAI's latest funding round is Secondary Market - II.
How much did OpenAI raise? OpenAI raised a total of $14B.
Who are the investors of OpenAI? Investors of OpenAI include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, K2 Global and 16 more.
Who are OpenAI's competitors? Competitors of OpenAI include Anthropic, deepset, Inworld AI, Cohere, Aleph Alpha, Inflection AI, Poly, Stability AI, Verneek, Regie.ai and 38 more.
🔹Related content: The Complete List of Unicorn Companies
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☑️ #31 Jun 28 2023
Corporate Structure (updated)
openai.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] We founded the OpenAI Nonprofit in late 2015 with the goal of building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. A project like this might previously have been the provenance of one or multiple governments—a humanity-scale endeavor pursuing broad benefit for humankind.
Seeing no clear path in the public sector, and given the success of other ambitious projects in private industry (e.g., SpaceX, Cruise, and others), we decided to pursue this project through private means bound by strong commitments to the public good. We initially believed a 501(c)(3) would be the most effective vehicle to direct the development of safe and broadly beneficial AGI while remaining unencumbered by profit incentives. We committed to publishing our research and data in cases where we felt it was safe to do so and would benefit the public.
We always suspected that our project would be capital intensive, which is why we launched with the goal of $1 billion in donation commitments. Yet over the years, OpenAI’s Nonprofit received approximately $130.5 million in total donations, which funded the Nonprofit’s operations and its initial exploratory work in deep learning, safety, and alignment.
🔹Related content:
⇢ The Research Structure (*data not verified)
General Partner:
OpenAI Inc - nonprofit (2015)
Limited Partnership:
OpenAI LP - investors and employees (2019)
OpenAI Holdings LP (2019)
⇢ Limited Liability Companies (*data not verified)
Manager Entity:
OpenAI GP LLC - 7063642 (DE, 2018)
OpenAI GP LLC (branch) - 201828910556 (CA, 2018)
Capped Profit Company:
OpenAI Global LLC - 7208772 (DE, 2022)1
OpenAI Global LLC (branch) - 202356911059 (CA, 2023)
Holding Company:
OpenAI Holdings LLC - 7356267 (DE, 2023)
OpenAI Holdings LLC (branch) - 202356911065 (CA, 2023)
⇢ Others
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☑️ #30 Jun 28, 2023
Introducing OpenAI London
openai.com: We are excited to announce OpenAI’s first international expansion with a new office in London, United Kingdom.
🔹 Continue reading | Related content:
Introducing OpenAI Dublin (update, 9/13/23)
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☑️ #29 Jun 6, 2023
OpenAI CEO says no plans for IPO
@hub71ad: Yesterday, we had the privilege of hosting #SamAltman, CEO of @OpenAI, for an enthralling forum in Abu Dhabi. The event saw a remarkable turnout, with over 800 attendees on-site and an additional 2,000 participants joining our virtual live stream.
We had the privilege of hosting Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, for an enthralling forum in Abu Dhabi. The event saw a remarkable turnout, with over 800 attendees on-site and an additional 2,000 participants joining our virtual live stream. During the conversation, Altman identified Abu Dhabi’s ability to get ahead of trends, stating, “There have been discussions around AI in Abu Dhabi before it was cool”. He also chatted about the region’s role in the global conversation about AI and how, as a hub, it is advancing the industry.
"I don't want to be sued by ... public market, Wall Street etc, so no, not that interested,"
"When we develop super intelligence, we are likely to make some decisions that most investors would look at very strangely,"
"We have a very strange structure,"
"We have this cap-to-profit thing."
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☑️ #28 May 16, 2023
OpenAI CEO Testifies on Artificial Intelligence /// Sam Altman reconfirms that he has ZERO equity in OpenAI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company created the ChatGPT and DALL-E text and image generation tools, was one of three artificial intelligence experts who testified on oversight of the swiftly developing technology at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing. They were questioned about the state of AI development and some of the concerns its usage had, especially regarding the job market and the spread of election disinformation. Afterward, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the subcommittee’s chair, talked to reporters about potential steps to regulate AI at the federal level.
Committee on the Judiciary https://www.judiciary.senate.gov
Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law: Oversight of A.I.: Rules for Artificial Intelligence
https://twitter.com/JudiciaryDems/status/1658473815549284359?s=20
118th Congress (2023 - 2024)
Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226
05/16/23 at 10:00am
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☑️ #27 May 16, 2023
Sam Altman reconfirms that he has ZERO equity in OpenAI
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☑️ #26 May 10, 2023
BrandShield: OpenAl brand guideline outreach
news.ycombinator.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts]
OpenAl brand guideline outreach
Dear Team, We are contacting you on behalf of our client OpenAl, Inc. ("OpenAI"). Our job is to work with developers to ensure that they are marketing their products in accordance with OpenAl's brand guidelines https://openal.com/brandand in a way that doesn't create confusion for the consumer.
Today, we're writing regarding your use of the mark "GPT" in connection with your GPT' product.
https://branddb.wipo.int/en/quicksearch/brand/
Stating "GPT" is inaccurate and may imply a partnership or endorsement where there isn't one. If your project uses GPT-3, GPT-4, or ChatGPT you may choose to say in the Product description (not in the Product/Site name) that it is "Powered by GPT-3" or "Powered by GPT-4" or "Powered by ChatGPT" and/or "Powered by DALLE" as applicable. We do not permit model names in products/site titles because there is concern that it can confuse end users, and it also triggers our enforcement mechanisms. It's important to identify the GPT-3, GPT-4, or ChatGPT (or DALL-E) model specifically, as opposed to just referencing GPT.
Please reply to this message by 05.10.2023 to let us know that you received it and intend to make the applicable changes. If you have any questions, please contact us directly at openal@brandshield.com.
Sincerely,
🔹Related content: Branddb.wipo.int
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☑️ #25 Mar 1524, 2023 🟠 opinion
OpenAI for the benefit all of humanity? Let’s see who OpenAI really is!
@short_straw: I promised a thread this weekend about OpenAI and the lawsuit I filed against them, and an explanation of what I hope to achieve here.
Sorry for the length, but there's a lot going on here. To begin with, we need to understand what “OpenAI” really is: a poorly constructed scheme operated by the Y Combinator Group to avoid the requirements of copyright law, tax law, and fair competition law in order to enrich their own insider group, the Y Combinator network.
What’s Y Combinator you ask? YC is a ‘tech accelerator’ out of San Francisco, CA. They work with tech startups to scale them up at alarming speeds (a process called Blitzscaling) and provide access to the Venture Capital money that drives these products. YC has funded over 4,000 startups since 2005. When you think of YC and blitzscaling, think of companies like Airbnb and Instacart; they captured incredible portions of market share with their VC funding and grand promises to the gig economy workers they pray on, then rapidly raise their rates and include absurd restrictions and costs until they are making a bare minimum 20% cut off of every transaction to repay these VCs. As these companies mature, they min-max to suck every penny they can out of local economies, there is nothing altruistic about them. They are very proud of this mode of operation; they refer to themselves as ‘Masters of Scale.’ It is also notable that Microsoft has invested in many YC companies.
Let’s look at why I claim OpenAI is just a poor cover for the activities the YC group:
Of the notable board members, investors, and business partners of OpenAI, well over 90% of them have previous financial dealings with Sam Altman and YC. Read the complaint, be horrified when you see the list.
Sam Altman stepped down as president of YC to become CEO of OpenAI. – Same leader
Board members, technology, corporate structures, and even the names are constantly passed back and forth and used freely among this group. For example YC Research, once a Research arm of YC, is now called “OpenResearch.” This is called comingling. When a corporation is formed, it has a separate legal identity from its individual owners. Comingling is generally illegal whether you are for-profit or non-profit. All the resources of the non-profit arm of OpenAI are comingled with resources of the for-profit arm. Same board members, same technology assets, and again, even the same name. OpenAI confirms all of this in a blog post.
OpenAI has claimed from founding that the company mission is non-profit; they have committed to ‘broad distribution’ to ‘benefit all of humanity.’ However, a close look at forming partnerships easily debunks this claim. While many developers are on a waiting list to create apps working with OpenAI’s GPT software, the business partners who received early access and are at the top of this list are overwhelmingly YC network founders and investors. Devs, while you are waiting for access right now, over 70 YC companies from the latest W23 batch are ‘AI companies.’ These companies will get access to OpenAI’s GPT and API while you are still waiting. The game is rigged; by the time you get access YC will have lined their pockets and captured the majority of market share. It is the Y Combinator network, not ‘all of humanity,’ that is reaping significant financial benefits from the founding and operation of OpenAI.
The members of the YC network came together and pooled their resources under the banner of ‘OpenAI’ to avoid copyright protections, paying taxes, and create, for themselves, the world’s most powerful supercomputer.
So as a member of the group ‘all of humanity,’ the reported beneficiaries of OpenAI, I have filed a claim for Breach of Fiduciary Duties. Breach of Fiduciary Duties is the umbrella my complaints generally fall under. The board members of OpenAI have a legal duty to serve the mission of the non-profit in good faith, to act prudently, and to obey the law, all of which they are not doing. OpenAI has *constantly* confirmed via public messaging their mission is to “benefit all of humanity;” the only logical conclusion to these statements is that all of humanity, you, me, and people on every continent, are beneficiaries of OpenAI’s mission. *I firmly believe, and state in good faith, that every human being on the planet has standing to sue OpenAI for these egregious actions.* Further, I look forward to hearing the legal team of OpenAI explain how this is not the case. If anyone has any illusions about the altruistic intentions of OpenAI, their explanation should put these illusions to bed.
Do I think my claim will go anywhere? Hard to say. The defendants are overwhelmingly some of the richest and most connected parties in the world. They have a combined of net worth of trillions of dollars. I’m litigating the suit on their home turf in SF, CA. However, I hope some attention on my claim will make it obvious that the State Attorneys General should be litigating and correcting this situation. OpenAI has repeatedly promised its benefits to “All of Humanity” in a ‘broad and distributed fashion.’ Any SAG that isn’t bought and sold by the upper class should be filing suit on behalf of their state constituents. One of my goals here is for us all, together, to bring enough attention to this problem to drag the SAGs into this. I’m happy to do the SAG’s jobs for them until they wake from their slumber.
People will make many claims about me and my complaint. People will claim I am crazy, or I have no right to file a suit, or that OpenAI has no obligations to me despite the absurd level of virtue signaling about ‘benefitting all of humanity.’ Those people are gate-keepers, and nothing they say stopped me from filing my suit, and nothing they say will convince me not to make my attempt to keep OpenAI accountable. They will tell you that everything they have done here is fair and above-board, they will tell you there will be plenty of jobs and opportunity left after they have sucked the financial landscape dry. They will tell you I’m crazy, and that if you even think of challenging them, you are crazy too. You know better; if we give an inch on this, they will take miles. Be loud. Protect your work. Protect your future. Don’t for one second think you are crazy for being concerned with any of this, you’re not.
🔹Related content: Case Number CGC23606176
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☑️ #24 Mar 1524, 2023 | Musk’s Series #4
Corporate Monopoly
@elonmusk: I’m sure it will be fine
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☑️ #23 Mar 15, 2023 | Musk’s Series #3
I’m still confused
@elonmusk: I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?
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☑️ #22Feb 24, 2023
Analyzing OpenAI’s investment strategy: How the ChatGPT maker is building a generative AI ecosystem
cbinsights.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] By investing in the next generation of AI startups, OpenAI could cement its status as the go-to AI model developer — and chart a course toward profitability. We break down where it’s investing and the areas it could target next.
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☑️ #21 Feb 17, 2023 | Musk’s Series #2
A maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft
@elonmusk: OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.
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☑️ #20 Jan 23, 2023
The Path to $10B ✅: Funding Round
OpenAI raised $10,000,000,000 / Corporate Round from Microsoft
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☑️ #19 Dec 4, 2022 | Musk’s Series #1
Access to Twitter database for training
@elonmusk: Not surprising, as I just learned that OpenAI had access to Twitter database for training. I put that on pause for now. Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward. OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. Neither are still true.
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☑️ #18 Dec 1, 2022 | Venture Capital
First Public VC Investment ✅: Introducing our first investments
opeanai.fund: [Transcription] [Excerpts] Actively Seeking New Investments
When we launched the OpenAI Startup Fund, we committed to invest early in a small number of startups that are pushing the boundaries of how powerful AI can positively impact the world and profoundly change people’s lives.
We’ve heard from thousands of founders around the globe, all with unique missions to use AI to transform our most important industries.
We believe that our first four investments—Descript, Harvey AI, Mem, and Speak—have outsized potential to reshape creativity, legal services, productivity, and education, respectively, at scale. These companies deeply integrate cutting edge AI models to create experiences for users that were not previously possible.
🔹Continue reading | Related content:
⇢ Structure (*data not verified):
OpenAI Startup GP I LLC - 6122995 (DE, 2021)
OpenAI Startup GP I LLC (branch) - 202122210559 (CA, 2021)
OpenAI Startup Fund Management LLC - 6091968 (DE, 2021)
OpenAI Startup Fund Management LLC (branch) - 202120710595 (CA, 2021)
OpenAI Startup Fund I LP - 6123170 (DE, 2021)
OpenAI Startup Fund I LP (branch) - 202203500014 (CA, 2022)
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☑️ #17 Jan 1, 2022
Funding Round (Crunchbase): Matthew Brown Companies
OpenAI raised an undisclosed amount / Secondary Market from Matthew Brown Companies
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☑️ #16 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2021 | Public Charity Status (FY #6)
Research team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2021
Reiichiro Nakano (Technical Staff) $196,272
Chris Clark (Sec/Tres) $50,000
Elena Chatziathanasiadou (Technical Staff) $47,292
Ilya Sutskever (Research Dir.) $0
David Lansky (General Counsel) $0
Shivon Zilis (Director) $0
Gregory Brockman (Director/CTO) $0
Will Hurd (Director) $0
Sam Altman (Dir/Pres/CEO) $0
Reid Hoffman (Director) $0
Holden Karnofsky (Director) $0
Adam D'Angelo (Director) $0
Tasha McCauley (Director) $0
Helen Toner (Director) $0
*Data not verified
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☑️ #15 Jan 1, 2021
Funding Round (Crunchbase): Andreesen Horowitz
OpenAI raised an undisclosed amount / Secondary Market from Andreessen Horowitz and 3 other investors
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☑️ #14 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2020 | Public Charity Status (FY #5)
Research team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2020
Shivon Zilis (Director) $200,000
Amanda MacAskill (Policy Staff) $190,289
Reiichiro Nakano (Technical Staff) $186,010
Przemyslaw J Debiak (Technical Staff) $157,607
Jerry Tworek (Technical Staff) $141,894
Jacob Hilton (Technical Staff) $114,803
Chris Clark (COO/Sec/Tres) $50,000
Ilya Sutskever (Research Dir.) $0
David Lansky (General Counsel) $0
Gregory Brockman (Director/CTO) $0
Sam Altman (Dir/President) $0
Reid Hoffman (Director) $0
Holden Karnofsky (Director) $0
Adam D'Angelo (Director) $0
Tasha McCauley (Director) $0
*Data not verified.
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☑️ #13 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2019 | Public Charity Status (FY #4)
Research team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2019
Christopher Olah (Technical Staff) $286,073
David Luan (VP Engineering) $242,500
John Schulman (Technical Staff) $216,667
Chris Clark (COO/Sec/Tres) $143,750
Scott Gray (Technical Staff) $74,167
Christopher Berner (Technical Staff) $72,500
David Lansky (General Counsel) $58,334
Ilya Sutskever (Research Dir.) $29,167
Gregory Brockman (Director/CTO) $29,167
Sam Altman (Dir/President) $0
Reid Hoffman (Director) $0
Sue Yoon (Director) $0
Holden Karnofsky (Director) $0
Adam D'Angelo (Director) $0
Tasha McCauley (Director) $0
*Data not verified.
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☑️ #12 Jul 23, 2019
Funding Round (Crunchbase): Microsoft
OpenAI raised $1,000,000,000 / Corporate Round from Microsoft
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☑️ #11 Mar 11, 2019 | Significant restructuring
OpenAI L.P. (“capped profit” structure)
openai.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] We’ve created OpenAI LP, a new “capped-profit” company that allows us to rapidly increase our investments in compute and talent while including checks and balances to actualize our mission.
Corporate Structure:
OpenAl, L.P. will be a for-profit Delaware Limited Partnership managed by General Partner, a single-member Delaware LLC controlled by OpenAl, Inc. (the Nonprofit)'s Board of Directors. At all times, no more than a minority of the Nonprofit's Board of Directors will be holders of any economic interest ir OpenAl, L.P. or in the employee holdings entity (described below).
*Limited partners (2019) refers to investors and employees (whose legal name is “OpenAI L.P.”)
*The general partner (2015) refers to OpenAI Nonprofit (whose legal name is “OpenAI Inc”)
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☑️ #10 Mar 11, 2019
Funding Round (Crunchbase): Khosla Ventures & Reid Hoffman Foundation
OpenAI raised an undisclosed amount / Seed from Khosla Ventures and Reid Hoffman Foundation
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☑️ #9 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2018 | Public Charity Status (FY #3)
Research team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2018
John Schulman (Senior Researcher) $541,667
Jakub Pachocki (Research Lead) $416,667
Szymon Sidor (Technical Staff) $413,334
Diederik Kingma (Technical Staff) $385,128
Dario Amodei (Research Director) $384,167
David Lansky (General Counsel) $279,167
Chris Clark (COO/Sec) $275,000
Gregory Brockman (Director/CTO) $175,000
Ilya Sutskever (Reasearch Dir.) $175,000
Elon Musk Resigned 22118 (Director) $0
Sam Altman (Dir/President) $0
Sue Yoon (Director) $0
Holden Karnofsky (Director) $0
Adam D'Angelo (Director) $0
Tasha McCauley (Director) $0
*Data not verified.
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☑️ #8 Feb 20, 2018
OpenAI supporters
openai.com: [Transcription] We’re excited to welcome new donors to OpenAI.
We’re excited to welcome the following new donors to OpenAI: Jed McCaleb, Gabe Newell, Michael Seibel, Jaan Tallinn, and Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen-Eaton. Reid Hoffman is significantly increasing his contribution. Pieter Abbeel (having completed his sabbatical with us), Julia Galef, and Maran Nelson are becoming advisors to OpenAI. Additionally, Elon Musk will depart the OpenAI Board but will continue to donate and advise the organization. As Tesla continues to become more focused on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon.
We’re broadening our base of funders to prepare for the next phase of OpenAI, which will involve ramping up our investments in our people and the compute resources necessary to make consequential breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. OpenAI was founded a little over two years ago and since that time we’ve paired our research efforts with applied work to push the limits of what AI systems are capable of via our work in robotics and Dota. That’s going to continue, and in the coming months you can also expect us to articulate the principles with which we’ll be approaching the next phase of OpenAI, and the policy areas in which we wish to see changes to ensure AI benefits all of humanity.
The Board is now Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Holden Karnofsky, and Sam Altman. We will add another director soon, and plan over time to further expand the Board. If you’re interested in working with us on this mission, consider joining OpenAI.
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☑️ #7 FY 2017 - FY 2018
First Grantmakers (*estimated) ✅
causeiq.com: Grant made by YC ORG (EIN 47-3772053)
Grantee | Grant description | Grant year | Amount
OpenAI | General Support | 2017 | $16,028,500
⚡️
grantmakers.io: Grant made by Aphorism Foundation - Reid Hoffman (EIN 46-4347021)
Grantee | Grant description | Grant year | Amount
OpenAI | General Support | 2017 | $5,000,000
⚡️
grantmakers.io: Grants made by Good Ventures Foundation (EIN 46-1008520)
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☑️ #6 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2017 | Public Charity Status (FY #2)
Research team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2017
Ilya Sutskever (Reasearch Dir.) $748,908
John Schulman (Senior Researcher) $718,728
Pieter Abbeel (Technical Staff) $658,077
Diederik Kingma (Technical Staff) $545,833
Wojciech Zaremba (Research Engineer) $508,584
Andrej Karpathy (Technical Staff) $424,231
Gregory Brockman (Director/CTO) $264,201
Chris Clark (Dir/COO/Treas) $187,500
David Lansky (General Counsel) $173,397
Elon Musk (Director) $0
Sam Altman (Director) $0
Holden Karnofsky (Director) $0
Jonathan Levy (Secretary) $0
*Data not verified.
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☑️ #5 Fiscal Year Ending Dec. 2016 | Public Charity Status (FY #1)
Research Team
www.irs.gov/Form990
Key Employees and Officers - Compensations
FISCAL YEAR ENDING DEC. 2016
Ilya Sutskever (Research Director) $1,900,000
Ian Goodfellow (Research Scientist) $808,243
Pieter Abbeel (Technical Staff) $425,000
Man Wai Vicki Cheung (Research Engineer) $297,917
John Schulman (Senior Researcher) $275,000
Gregory Brockman (CTO) $175,000
Diederik Kingma (Technical Staff) $172,917
Chris Clark (Dir/COO) $40,942
Elon Musk (Director)$0
Sam Altman (Director)$0
Jonathan Levy (Sec/Treasurer)$0
*Data not verified.
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☑️ #4 Aug 22, 2016
Funding Round (Crunchbase): Y Combinator
OpenAI raised $120,000 / Pre Seed from Y Combinator
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☑️ #3 2015
Introducing OpenAI, Day #1
@sama: the first day of openai, seven years ago today (posted: 1/4/23)
🔹 Related content:
https://hackernoon.com/how-openai-transitioned-from-a-nonprofit-to-a-$29b-for-profit-company (2023)
[Transcription] [Excerpts] [1] When the company started in 2015 by a group of high-profile entrepreneurs and researchers – among them were Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Peter Thiel, and Olivier Grabias, its mission was clear:
“to advance artificial intelligence in a way that would benefit society as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate a financial return.”
A list of the "top researchers in the area" was reportedly created by Greg Brockman, AI researcher and co-founder of OpenAI, after a meeting with Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist, who is allegedly one of the "founding fathers" of the deep learning movement, according to Wired Wired. In December 2015, Brockman was able to hire nine of them as the company’s first employees, and the promise and mission of OpenAI were said to be what attracted these researchers to the company.
[2] One of the first batches of AI software OPenAI released was, OpenAI Gym, a toolkit for building artificially intelligent systems by way of a technology called "reinforcement learning." Exactly what Brockman said the company will be starting with. The same year, "Universe," a software platform for assessing and honing an AI's general intelligence via a variety of games, websites, and other applications, was also introduced.
Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk's Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free (2016)
[Transcription] [Excerpts] How many dollars is "borderline crazy"? Two years ago, as the market for the latest machine learning technology really started to heat up, Microsoft Research vice president Peter Lee said that the cost of a top AI researcher had eclipsed the cost of a top quarterback prospect in the National Football League---and he meant under regular circumstances, not when two of the most famous entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were trying to poach your top talent. Zaremba says that as OpenAI was coming together, he was offered two or three times his market value.
OpenAI didn't match those offers. But it offered something else: the chance to explore research aimed solely at the future instead of products and quarterly earnings, and to eventually share most---if not all---of this research with anyone who wants it. That's right: Musk, Altman, and company aim to give away what may become the 21st century's most transformative technology---and give it away for free.
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☑️ #2 December 11, 2015
How Elon Musk and Y Combinator Plan to Stop Computers From Taking Over
wired.com (backchannel): [Transcription] [Excerpts] They’re funding a new organization, OpenAI, to pursue the most advanced forms of artificial intelligence — and give the results to the…
AI needs a lot of computation. What will be your infrastructure?
Altman: We are partnering with Amazon Web Services. They are donating a huge amount of infrastructure to the effort.
And there is a billion dollars committed to this?
Musk: I think it’s fair to say that the commitment actually is some number in excess of a billion. We don’t want to give an exact breakdown but there are significant contributions from all the people mentioned in the blog piece.
Over what period of time?
Altman: However long it takes to build. We’ll be as frugal as we can but this is probably a multi-decade project that requires a lot of people and a lot of hardware.
And you don’t have to make money?
Musk: Correct. This is not a for-profit investment. It is possible that it could generate revenue in the future in the same way that the Stanford Research Institute is a 501c3 that generates revenue. So there could be revenue in the future, but there wouldn’t be profits. There wouldn’t be profits that would just enrich shareholders, there wouldn’t be a share price or anything. We think that’s probably good.
Elon, you earlier invested in the AI company DeepMind, for what seems to me to be the same reasons — to make sure AI has oversight. Then Google bought the company. Is this a second try at that?
Musk: I should say that I’m not really an investor in any normal sense of the word. I don’t seek to make investments for financial return. I put money into the companies that I help create and I might invest to help a friend, or because there’s some cause that I believe in or something I’m concerned about. I am really not diversified beyond my own company in any material sense of the word. But yeah, my sort of “investment,” in quotes, for DeepMind was just to get a better understanding of AI and to keep an eye on it, if you will.
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☑️ #1 December 11, 2015 | Public Charity Status
Introducing OpenAI
openai.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.
OpenAI Inc
Nonprofit Tax Code Designation: 501(c)(3)
EIN: 81-0861541
> Public Charity
Defined as: Organizations for any of the following purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn’t provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.
> Research Tax-Exempt Organization
Donations to this organization are tax deductible.
> NTEE Code
Engineering and Technology Research, Services (Science and Technology Research Institutes, Services) (U40)
🟩 The Path to IPO: OpenAI > #1 > #2 > Latest
Minority Owner: Microsoft Corporation