Nadella: Bill Gates was skeptical of Microsoft's initial $1B OpenAI investment
Satya Nadella · All things AI w @altcap @sama & @satyanadella. A Halloween Special. 🎃🔥BG2 w/ Brad Gerstner · Bg2 Pod · Oct 31, 2025 · at 34:05
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella describes the 2019 board discussions regarding Microsoft's landmark $1 billion investment into OpenAI's capped-profit structure.
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“Obviously you go to the board and say, hey, I have an idea of taking a billion dollars and giving it to this crazy structure, which we don't even kind of understand. What is it? It's a nonprofit, blah, blah, blah. And saying, go for it. There was a debate. Bill was kind of rightfully so skeptical because, and then he became like, once he saw the GPT-IV demo, like that was like the thing that Bill talked about publicly, where when he saw it, he said, it's the best demo he saw after, you know, what Charles Simone showed him at Xerox PARC.”
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