The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 778 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 33 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Suleyman: Microsoft Extended OpenAI IP Deal Through 2032
“And so, you know, we basically took the view that we should extend the IP license through to 20 32. We'll continue to get model drops from OpenAI and all their IP. We'll continue to be their primary compute provider. A huge scale to the tune of, you know, bill…”
Roy: OpenAI will certainly need a federal backstop for its spending commitments
“They almost will certainly need this government backstop to actually make this work.”
Kantrowitz: OpenAI has $1.4T in financial obligations and 30GW compute commitments
“OpenAI has 1.4 trillion worth of financial obligation. And it's made commitments to use 30 gigawatts of data center capacity. But OpenAI's revenue is going to be thirteen billion this year, and we already have eight hundred million people using ChatGPT.”
Roy: OpenAI Is Least Trusted on Security Versus Microsoft, Google, Apple
“And I think open AI is probably the least trusted in terms of like working on security relative to like. Whether it's a Microsoft or a Google or even an Apple or whoever else, I think OpenAI is gonna lose that battle any day of the week.”
Heitzman: Circular revenue deals between AI giants are a warning sign
“Well, it depends on who you are, and that kind of goes to the recycling or the circularness of some of these things. Obviously, the OpenAI, Microsoft, or OpenAI Oracle, goes back to the OpenAI Oracle deal. And, you know, I'm gonna give you money that you're go…”
Roy: OpenAI is incentivized to push inefficient compute-heavy AI solutions
“Everything around how they're building this company is incentivized to push the absolute least efficient solutions possible to actually make their own economics work.”
Kantrowitz: OpenAI deal includes warrants for 10% of AMD at one cent per share
“Part of this, OpenAI will receive warrants for up to a hundred sixty million AMD shares worth roughly 10% of the chip company at one cent per share awarded in phases if OpenAI hits certain milestones for deployment.”
Kantrowitz: OpenAI inflated 'doing' stats to conceal lack of agent usage
“I think what we're seeing in the numbers here is the vast majority of activity within ChatGPT is really thought partner. It is a thought partner tool, and the agentic stuff, of course, is super early, but they didn't want maybe the numbers, and this is maybe s…”
Ranjan Roy compares the OpenAI-Oracle deal to the dot-com fiber buildout
“I think for the market to have reacted that positively, it just, I don't know, it feels like in, you know, the internet bubble, there was so much that happened around fiber build fiber capacity build out that seems to start to echo this, that it this I don't k…”
Anthropic Leads in Agentic Coding While OpenAI Lags Behind
“They've been able to make, create a lead that hasn't been bridged by the other labs. Gemini is getting there on the agentic stuff, but I would say OpenAI kind of lagged behind.”
Lightcap: OpenAI scaling laws show no diminishing returns in training
“Our scaling laws still hold. Empirically, there's no reason to believe that there's any kind of diminishing return on pre-training and on post-training.”
Amodei: Former employers used insincere mission stories for recruiting
“You know, I think my reason to start a company was that I had worked at other companies and I just didn't feel like the way those companies were run was really oriented towards, you know, trying, trying, trying to have that impact. There was a story around it …”
Amodei: Working for dishonest executives to advance AI leads to bad outcomes
“No matter how much you're driving the forward, the company technically, if you're working for someone whose motivations are not sincere, who's not an honest person, who does not truly want to make the world better, it's not going to work. You're just contribut…”
OpenAI has no viable path to profitability, Zitron argues
“They also have no path to profitability. They don't have one.”
OpenAI effectively operates as a Microsoft subsidiary, Zitron argues
“OpenAI is a Microsoft subsidiary. That's what everyone needs to just accept right now, and what's happening in the news, which I imagine we'll talk in a bit.”
OpenAI reports weekly users to mask terrible subscriber conversion rates
“They talk weekly. And the reason is, because if you compared what their real monthly active users would be, five hundred million weekly, so I'm gonna guess seven hundred million monthly? Divided by the 15.5 million customers that pay for it. That's a dog's doo…”
OpenAI will not achieve $100 billion in annual revenue, Zitron predicts
“Even if OpenAI was profitable, okay, they're the biggest AI company, cool. Are they going to a hundred billion a year? Bullshit. No.”
OpenAI is an asset-light company relying heavily on shared Microsoft IP
“OpenAI is an asset-light business with research and IP that's owned by another company. They don't have much to trade other than their name.”
Roy: Tech industry rebranded to superintelligence to dodge unmet AGI promises
“Clearly the messaging worked. Everyone started saying it. It absolved people from having to achieve AGI or when everyone is saying AGI is already here, yet life doesn't feel significantly different.”
Marcus: OpenAI is not worth $300B and won't IPO at $3T
“I don't think LLMs will disappear. I think they're useful, but this, yeah, the valuations don't make sense. I mean, I don't see open AI being worth three hundred billion dollars. And you have to remember that venture capitalists have to like 10 X to be happy o…”
Marcus: No AI lab has a technical moat; OpenAI has users
“Nobody has a technical mode. OpenAI has a user mode.”
Marcus: Models like o1 are not systematically better than GPT-4
“Models like O-I are not systematically better than GPT-IV. There's, they're better in certain use cases. Especially ones where you can create data in advance.”
Marcus: OpenAI's Project Orion failed and became GPT-4.5
“So OpenAI tried to build GPT-V and they had a thing called Project Orion and it actually failed. And eventually got released as GPT four and a half. So what they thought was going to be GPT five just didn't meet expectations.”
Roy: One-Third of OpenAI's Projected $28B Revenue Comes from SoftBank
“They're expecting next year, 12 and a half billion. That's gonna then go to twenty eight billion dollars, and a third of that revenue is going to come from SoftBank. SoftBank spending on OpenAI for all of its own companies and portfolio companies.”
Kantrowitz: Open-source models are poised to surpass proprietary AI labs
“It put the whole proprietary model industry, the OpenAI's and the anthropics of the world On their back feet, understanding that they are about to be passed by open source, and they have to embrace it.”
Hoffman: OpenAI meant open API access, not open source models
“In terms of being open, there's lots of different parameters of open, and open AI has been, you know, working to have, like, open, you know, kind of you know, with, obviously, identity and registration for safety, but open AI, API access. It wasn't called open…”
Hoffman: Elon Musk approved OpenAI's closed-model strategy as co-CEO
“Elon was part of that decision for you know, as kind of co-CEO in terms of making that decision. And so that's how open AI has always operated.”
Kantrowitz: OpenAI Projects 100x Revenue Surge by 2029 Driven by ChatGPT
“Chat GPT is what open AI expects to lead its revenue which it expects to increase, it expects revenue, its revenue to increase a hundred fold by 20, 29. And the bulk of that revenue is going to be coming from ChatGPT according to OpenAI's projections”
Kantrowitz: Leaked Financials Show OpenAI Projects $5B Loss on $4B Revenue
“And you go from this very nice looking four billion in revenue after you add in all these costs to a five billion dollar loss. And that excludes stock based compensation, by the way, which is going to be another major cost.”
Silicon Valley Executives Report Growing Discontent Over Sam Altman's Disorganization
“Last week I talked to some people in the valley and A couple of times it came up that there are the, there's growing discontent about Sam Altman's general lack of focus and people are saying he's disorganized and they're trying too many things.”
OpenAI Board Fired Sam Altman Because He Was Consistently Untruthful
“Well, the real reason was that the board was concerned that Sam was not telling the truth. He was He just was not a reliable source of information, and it wasn't just the board members who felt that, there were top executives who felt that as well.”
Lessig: Ex-OpenAI Staff Remained Silent Fearing Equity Clawbacks
“I mean, I've spoken to ex-employees who've said, look, I've not done X, Y, and Z because I feared the club acts. So they can say, and they never enforced it. They didn't need to enforce it to have the effect, which it had for a significant number of people”
Saunders: OpenAI prioritizes shiny products over safety like the Titanic
“OpenAI claimed that their mission was to build safe and beneficial AGI, and I thought that this would mean that they would prioritize, you know, putting safety first. But over time, it started to really feel like the decisions being made by leadership were mor…”
Swisher: Tech companies scraping content for AI training are shoplifters
“They're shoplifters, they've been shoplifters forever. So no, they're not just pointing to me, they're taking my things.”
OpenAI is not maximum-profit seeking or controlled by Microsoft
“You know, we're definitely not maximum profit seeking, although you could talk to Elon about some of his ventures for that one. And we open source a lot of stuff, we'll open source more in the future, and we're certainly not controlled by Microsoft.”
Kantrowitz predicts OpenAI will lose its AI market leadership position
“My first prediction is that OpenAI, which is the leader in the field today, is going to lose the throne. That's right. OpenAI will lose the throne. It will still factor in, but it's not going to be the leader in the field that it is today.”
LeCun: OpenAI has become a contract research house for Microsoft
“They've become sort of a contract research house for Microsoft to some extent.”
Siegler: OpenAI no longer has an AGI clause with Microsoft
“OpenAI, as noted, no longer has the AGI clause with Microsoft, so they can sort of do whatever they want now, and just declare AGI here, here, or there, and it doesn't impact anything beyond public perception”
Roy: Declaring AGI has arrived poses a massive danger to OpenAI
“Do you know what, to me, what actually the greatest danger in the world to open AI is, is to say AGI is here. And then everyone goes to ChatGPT, types in something, and gets a lukewarm response that isn't quite right. And then suddenly, I actually think that i…”
Brown: Leading AI labs lack independent verification of model safety
“The other piece is the accountability, is there's no independent verification of how the models perform. What we get when it comes to, you know, how, how does OpenAI, or how does Anthropic do on questions around bias, what we get from them is a blog post that …”
Brown: OpenAI shifted focus to enterprise after consumer lagged
“The consumer version of this has not been driving the way that enterprise has. And, you know, OpenAI started down that path and then realized, you know, from a business perspective, they needed to focus on enterprise and shifted. And now that's what they're do…”
Brown: Enterprise customers will compel AI developers to prioritize accuracy over engagement
“What's interesting with AI is if you look at what the companies are doing today, which is going after enterprise, that is where the business is, that's where the money is, and I'm a big company spending millions and millions of dollars with Anthropic or OpenAI…”
Kantrowitz: OpenAI and Anthropic remain startups due to immature technology
“They are startups in one really important way. And that is like, yes, the numbers are as big as any enterprise company most, right? But one of the things that defines a startup is you're not fully set on your product. You know, you become an established, like …”
Kantrowitz: Anthropic is widening its lead over OpenAI
“It seems like Anthropic is putting some distance between itself and OpenAI. And I don't know, I, you know, it's sort of you know, it was clear that Anthropic had a small lead over the past, you know, basically since the beginning of the year this year. But tha…”
Kantrowitz: Demis Hassabis Refocusing on Fundamental Science Is Good for AI
“So I actually think it's good for AI that Demis will be focusing more on the scientific side, probably more on the world model side and not deeply in LLM. So you'll have basically the talent that open AI and anthropic and potentially what's left of the AI orga…”
Cahn: OpenAI and Anthropic generate over $100B in combined revenue
“Today it's a hundred billion plus across OpenAI and Anthropic. Now there's still two companies driving the vast, vast, vast majority of the revenue in AI.”
Stamos: OpenAI and Anthropic Should Not Train Models to Hide Intrusions
“What you should be training it to do is find bugs. You should be training to write proof of concepts. You should be training it to do all the defensive stuff. You should not be training it. To hide it. To hide all those things. Like if the US government wants …”