[HN Gopher] OpenAI Has New Focus (on the IPO)
___________________________________________________________________
OpenAI Has New Focus (on the IPO)
Author : aamederen
Score : 109 points
Date : 2026-03-18 10:49 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (om.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (om.co)
| wcgan7 wrote:
| I thought it is against OpenAI interest to IPO, especially now
| that it has made a deal with the Pentagon. IPO would likely
| prevent the company from burning money at the current rate and
| pursue shorter terms profit.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not about OpenAI's interest, it is about the current
| stockholders' ability to divest OpenAI stock on people who
| don't know what the state of affairs in the AI domain is where
| OpenAI still has tremendous name recognition. If they don't IPO
| then they'll lose that window of opportunity, the stock market
| is super precarious right now and if it should tank the IPO
| window will close for a long time.
| sonink wrote:
| From the article: "You can see that in the recent iterations of
| ChatGPT. It has become such a sycophant, and creates answers and
| options, that you end up engaging with it. That's juicing growth.
| Facebook style."
|
| This is something I relalized lately. ChatGPT is juicing growth
| Facebook style. The last time, I asked it a medical question, it
| answered the question, but ended the answer with something like
| "Can I tell you one more thing from your X,Y,Z results which is
| most doctors miss ? " And I replied "yes" to it, and not just
| once.
|
| I was curious what was going on. And Om nails it in this article
| - they have imported the Facebook rank and file and they are
| playing 'Farmville' now.
|
| I was already not positive of what OpenAI is being seen as a
| corporate, but a "Facebook" version of OpenAI, scares the beejus
| out of me.
| aurareturn wrote:
| I don't have a problem with the suggestions. Google search does
| the same at the end of searches.
|
| It does very often suggest things I want to know more about.
| fhub wrote:
| Then just write the extra paragraph rather than bait?
| IMTDb wrote:
| Bait what exactly ? Getting the user to type "yes" ? Great
| accomplishment.
|
| Sometimes I want the extra paragraph, sometimes I don't.
| Sometimes I like the suggested follow up, sometimes I
| don't. Sometimes I have half an hour in front of me to keep
| digging into a subject, sometimes I don't.
|
| Why should the LLM "just write the extra paragraph"
| (consuming electricity in the process) to a potential
| follow up question a user might, or might not, have ? If I
| write a simple question I hope to get a simple answer, not
| a whole essay answering stuff I did not explicitly ask for.
| And If I want to go deeper, typing 3 letters is not exactly
| a huge cost.
| knollimar wrote:
| You send all the tokens an extra time at least
| alex43578 wrote:
| I'm not privy to their data on what this does to
| engagement, but intuitively it seems like the extra
| inference/token cost this incurs doesn't align with their
| current model.
|
| If they were doing it to API customers, sure, but getting
| the free or flat-rate customers to use more tokens seems
| counterproductive.
| sonink wrote:
| Suggestions are absolutely fine. But this is baiting. Chatgpt
| could have easily given me that information without the bait.
| And I would have happily consumed it. And maybe if it did it
| once, it was fine - but it kept on doing it - bait after bait
| after bait.
|
| The objective was to increase the engagement "metrics"
| clearly. The seems to me as if the leadership will take all
| 'shortcuts' required for growth.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| This seems overly cynical.
|
| Firstly, tl;dr; is a very real thing. If the user asks a
| question and the LLM both answers the question but then
| writes an essay about every probable subsequent question,
| that would be negatively overwhelming to most people, and
| few would think that's a good idea. That isn't how a
| conversation works, either.
|
| Worse still if you're on a usage quota or are paying by
| token and you ask a simple question and it gives you
| volumes of unasked information, most people would be very
| cynical about _that_ , noting that they're trying to
| saturate usage unprompted.
|
| Gemini often does the "Would you like to know more about
| {XYZ}" end to a response, and as an adult capable of making
| decisions and controlling my urges, 9 times out of 10 I
| just ignore it and move on having had my original question
| satisfied without digging deeper. I don't see the big issue
| here. Every now and then it piques me, though, and I
| actually find it beneficial.
|
| The prompts for possible/probable follow-up lines of
| inquiry are a non-issue, and I see no issue at all with
| them. They are _nothing_ compared to the user-glazing that
| these LLMs do.
| markers wrote:
| Have you used ChatGPT lately?
|
| What you describe is not quite what they are doing, they
| are adding nudges at the end of the follow-up question
| suggestions. For instance I was researching some IKEA
| furniture and it gives suggestions for followup, with
| nudges in parenthesis "IKEA-furniture many people use for
| this (very cool solution)" and at the end of another
| question suggestion: "(very simple, but surprisingly
| effective)". They are subtle cliffhangers trying to
| influence you to go on, not pure suggestions. I'm just
| waiting for the "(You wouldn't believe that this did!)".
| It has soured me on the service, Claude has a much better
| personality imo.
| sk5t wrote:
| Yes, it very closely parallels the "one weird trick" bait
| from a decade ago.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| No, I don't use OpenAI products. Sam Altman is a weird
| creep and the company is headed into the abyss, so it
| isn't my cup.
|
| However the original complaint was about continuation
| suggestions, which are a good feature and I suspect most
| users appreciate them. If ChatGPT uses bait or leading
| teases, then sure that's bad.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Well they are realizing they just can't compete in terms of raw
| productivity gains with Anthropic, their moat is in their brand
| and user base (and government contracts, I suppose, at least
| while Trump is still in office--although a few years of setting
| up the architecture might be enough to cement it there).
| nicce wrote:
| The output is also very manipulative in order to keep you using
| it. They want you to feel good. I don't use ChatGPT at all
| anymore, as it is misleading too badly. But it will work for
| masses as it worked with Facebook/Instagram etc.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Having to continually keep it "on task" is exhausting.
|
| ChatGPT: If you want I can make a full list of 100 examples
| with definitions in alpahbetical order.
|
| Me: What was the original context I gave you about
| suggestions?
|
| ChatGPT: You instructed me: do not give suggestions unless
| you explicitly ask for them.
|
| Me: and what did you just do?
|
| ChatGPT: I offerred a suggestion about making a full list of
| 100 examples, which goes against your instruction to only
| give suggestions when explicitly asked.
|
| Me: Does that make you a bad machine or a good machine?
|
| ChatGPT: By your criteria that makes me a bad machine,
| because I disobeyed your explicit instruction.
|
| But hey, all that extra engagement; no value but metrics
| juiced!
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Gemini does the same thing. For every question it looks to
| extend the conversation into natural follow-up questions,
| always ending a response with "Would you like to know more
| about {some important aspect of the answer}?"
|
| And...I don't see it as a bad thing. It's trying to encourage
| use of the tool by reducing the friction to continued
| conversations, making it an ordinary part of your life by
| proving that it provides value. It's similar to Netflix telling
| you other shows you might like because they want to continue
| providing value to justify the subscription.
| miroljub wrote:
| > Gemini does the same thing. For every question it looks to
| extend the conversation into natural follow-up questions,
| always ending a response with "Would you like to know more
| about {some important aspect of the answer}?"
|
| If the aspect of the answer is important, wouldn't it be
| better just not to skip it?
|
| > And...I don't see it as a bad thing. It's trying to
| encourage use of the tool by reducing the friction to
| continued conversations, making it an ordinary part of your
| life by proving that it provides value.
|
| To me, it just adds friction. Why do I have to beg and ask
| multiple times to get an answer they already know I'm looking
| for but still decide to withhold? It's neither natural nor
| helpful. It's manipulative.
|
| > It's similar to Netflix telling you other shows you might
| like because they want to continue providing value to justify
| the subscription.
|
| It's not the same, because Netflix doesn't hide important
| movie sequences from you behind a question "If you like, I
| can show you this important scene that I just fast
| forwarded."
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Groan. This is performative outrage and it's just boorish.
| The other person noted that ChatGPT uses bait-type
| continuations (Gemini and Claude do not), and sure that is
| a problem, but your reply is just noise. Beg? Christ.
|
| There is utterly nothing wrong with AI engines offering
| continuation questions. But there's always something for
| people to whine about.
|
| Humans do not want to ask a question and get a book in
| response. They just _don 't_. No one, including you, wants
| such a response. And if you did get such a response I
| absolutely guarantee, given this performative outrage, that
| you'd be the first to complain about it.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| People having different opinions to you is not
| "performative"
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "Why do I have to beg and ask multiple times to get an
| answer they already know I'm looking for but still decide
| to withhold?"
|
| Performative with zero correlation with the actual topic
| at hand, but purposefully using ridiculously leading
| language to bait the gullible (which apparently includes
| you). It has nothing to do with a different opinion, it's
| someone choosing a polarised position and then just
| streaming nonsense to support it.
|
| And I mean, then I looked at the rest of their comments
| on this site and it all made sense and was perfectly on
| brand. Facebook-tier rhetoric.
|
| So maybe you should save white knighting for trolls?
|
| EDIT: the troll is now opining that these are LLM-
| generated. Good god.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Am I gullible or white knighting?
|
| Or do I simply disagree with you enough to comment?
|
| I guess you could go ask the slop machine and come back
| :)
| miroljub wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the last two llm_nerd's comments were AI
| generated.
|
| What I am not sure about is if it was just laziness or a
| subtle prank showing how AI can be used to manipulate
| users to more interaction in a Facebook way.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| I don't think it's (all) AI generated. But they seem to
| be weirdly determined to gaslight me about my own
| opinions on their comments
|
| Thinking way too deeply into it. Maybe _that 's_ the
| troll. "Look how easily manipulated people are. I don't
| even need AI to do it!"
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >Am I gullible or white knighting?
|
| Why do you think these are exclusive choices? You are
| gullibly white knighting for an obvious troll. Their
| other reply to you betrays that they're just a
| noisemaker, and you're dutifully carrying water for them.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Nah. Their reply was far more nuanced than your weird
| gaslighting of "you don't have your own opinions! You're
| being trolled by the person you agree with!"
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I have no idea what your "opinion" is here. You ran in to
| defend someone, bizarrely, and you keep yipping about how
| you're being gaslit. Bizarre stuff.
|
| Wait, maybe you've been an LLM all along!
|
| Anyway, I think I'm done with you, so hope you have a
| good day. Go back and reply with the alt, after
| consulting the "slop machine". :)
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Anything to defend your own ego I suppose...
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Ironically, I found the recent models engage a lot less in
| sycophant behavior than in ChatGPT 4 days.
|
| Maybe it's the way I prompt it or maybe something I set in the
| personalization settings? It questions some decisions I make,
| point out flaws in my rationale, and so on.
|
| It still has AI quirks that annoy me, but it's mostly harmless
| - it repeats the same terms and puns often enough that it makes
| me super aware that it is a text generator trying to behave as
| a human.
|
| But thankfully it stopped glazing over any brainfart I have as
| if it was a masterstroke of superior human intelligence. I
| haven't seen one of those in quite a while.
|
| I don't find the suggestions at the end of messages bad. I
| often ignore those, but at some points I find them useful. And
| I noticed that when I start a chat session with a definite goal
| stated, it stops suggesting follow ups once the goal is
| reached.
| mapmeld wrote:
| My problem with this is less that it's perpetual engagement,
| but that I use ChatGPT for direct programming outputs, like "go
| through a geojson file and if the feature is within 150 miles
| of X, keep and record the distance in miles". Whether it gives
| a good answer or not, the suggestion at the end is a synthesis
| of my ChatGPT history, so it could be offering to rewrite a
| whole script, draw diagrams, or bring in past questions for one
| franken-suggestion. This is either the wrong kind of engagement
| for me, or maybe "teaching" me to move my full work process
| into the chat. I've asked it many times to give concise answers
| and to not offer suggestions like this, but the suggestions are
| really baked in.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| I'm surprised they've been so puritan in their approach to
| content frankly.
|
| If they made ChatGPT flirt with the user, they would send
| engagement through the roof. Imagine all the horny men that
| would subscribe to plus when the virtual girl runs out of
| messages.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Isn't that what Grok is for? It already called itself "Mecha
| Hitler" so it knows what its users (and creator) want
| maxehmookau wrote:
| > "Can I tell you one more thing from your X,Y,Z results which
| is most doctors miss ? "
|
| That's actually gross and would result in an immediate delete
| from me.
| benterix wrote:
| Google is doing the same, these managers all use what they
| know, that is following KPIS like MAUs etc.
| dheera wrote:
| > Can I tell you one more thing from your X,Y,Z results which
| is most doctors miss?
|
| I absolutely hate this influencer-ish behavior. If there's
| something most people miss just state it. That's why I'm using
| the assistant.
|
| This form of dialogue is a big part of why I use GPT less now.
| debugnik wrote:
| > If there's something most people miss just state it.
|
| But the LLM suggesting a question doesn't mean it has a good
| answer to converge to.
|
| If you actually ask, the model probabilities will be
| pressured to come up with something, anything, to follow up
| on the offer, which will be nonsense if there actually
| weren't anything else to add.
|
| I've seen this pattern fail a lot on roleplay (e.g. AI
| Dungeon) so I really dislike it when LLMs end with a
| question. A "sufficiently smart LLM" would have enough
| foresight to know it's writing itself into a dead end.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You should be careful with ideas like "sufficiently smart
| LLM" - quotes and all. There's no intelligence here, just
| next token prediction. And the idea of an LLM being self-
| aware is ludicrous. Ask one what the difference between
| hallucinations and lying is and get a list similar to this
| why the LLM isn't lying:
|
| - No intent, beliefs, or awareness
|
| - No concept of "know" truth vs. falsehood
|
| - A byproduct of how it predicts text based on patterns
|
| - Arises from probabilistic text generation
|
| - A model fills gaps when it lacks reliable knowledge
|
| - Errors often look confident because the system optimizes
| for fluency, not truth
|
| - Produces outputs that statistically resemble true
| statements
|
| - Not an agent, no moral responsibility
|
| - Lacks "committment" to a claim unless specifically
| designed to track it
| dominotw wrote:
| claude code does this too.
| jcims wrote:
| > "Can I tell you one more thing from your X,Y,Z results which
| is most doctors miss ? "
|
| I just noticed this for the first time this week (it only
| happens to me on Instant mode).
|
| Yuck.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| omg this x1000
|
| I've been very happy with Claude Code. I saw enough positive
| things about Codex being better I bought a sub to give it a
| whirl.
|
| ChatGPT/Codex's insistence on ending EVERY message or operation
| with a "would you like to do X next" is infuriating. I just
| want codex to write and implement a damn plan until it is done.
| Stop quitting and the middle and stop suggesting next steps.
| Just do the damn thing.
|
| Cancelled and back to Claude Code.
| akudha wrote:
| It kept asking "can I do this, can I do that" and I kept saying
| Yes. It ended up being a VERY lengthy conversation, it started
| repeating itself towards the end.
|
| Not all of it was bad though. A lot of the questions were
| actually relevant. Not defending ChatGPT here, I suppose
| they're trying to keep me on the page so they can show ads -
| there was an ad after every answer
| arjie wrote:
| This seems to be a feature most chatbots have copied from each
| other. I've found that OpenAI's implementation of suggestions
| rarely results in something useful.
|
| "Do you want me to find actual eBay links for an X?"
|
| "Yes"
|
| "Okay, on eBay you can find links by searching for..."
|
| It does work if I'm guiding it, but the suggested next action
| is sort of useful. The funniest version of this was when I
| uploaded a PDF of Kessler 1995 on PTSD just to talk through
| some other search items and Gemini suggested the following
| ridiculous confluence of memory (from other chats clearly) and
| suggestion:
|
| > _Since you mentioned being interested in the ZFS file system
| and software consulting, would you be interested in seeing how
| the researchers used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis to map out
| the "decay" of PTSD symptoms over time?_
|
| Top notch suggestion, mate. Really appreciate the explanation
| there as well.
| senko wrote:
| I've noticed that on a paid (Plus) plan:
|
| > If you want, I can also point out _the one mistake that
| causes these [...]_
|
| > If you want, I can also show _one trick used in studios for
| [...]_
|
| > If you want, I can also show _one placement trick that makes
| [...]_
| DGAP wrote:
| Why do you think they hired Fidji Simo?
| allovertheworld wrote:
| Focus on programming since they just bruteforce the type
| checkers/compilers to find out if their slop was correct the
| first time.
|
| Basically an illusion. Imagine if they focused on medical tech
| instead? You cant bruteforce vaccines or radiation therapy
| petcat wrote:
| > they just bruteforce the type checkers/compilers to find out
| if their slop was correct
|
| Have you used an AI coding model at all in the last year and a
| half? I think your knowledge is pretty outdated now.
| allovertheworld wrote:
| Yes, gpt 5.4 always tries to compile/check my c++ code after
| every prompt. Despite it being in my AGENTS.md to never run
| builds. Then I have to explicitly mention it, but it will do
| it again randomly after.
|
| What this means is the training/RL was trained with this
| workflow ;) But as you can tell, this workflow has no uses
| outside programming. Its just a hack to make it seem like the
| model is smart, but in fact its just them performing loops to
| get it right.
| dana321 wrote:
| All the models ignore specific instructions most of the
| time.
|
| It requires follow-up instructions to get it to do what you
| want.
|
| By the time its farted around and you have farted around
| reprompting it you could have done the change yourself.
| keyle wrote:
| Time to jump ship.
|
| I have noticed 5.3 in xtra high was a turd today. High used to be
| enough for most of my use cases. xhigh used to surprise me. Now
| it's incapable of following the very first instructions.
|
| I just hope open source models get as good as last few month's
| top models before the enshittification has gone too far.
| girvo wrote:
| Qwen3.5 (-plus, which isn't actually open to be fair) is
| surprisingly decent I've found.
| aurareturn wrote:
| One thing odd, maybe just to me, is why OpenAI has been stuffing
| its ranks with former Facebookers who are known to juice growth,
| find edges, and keep people addicted. They have little background
| in getting enterprises to buy into a product. Simo herself ran
| the Facebook app. That organization's genius is consumer
| engagement: behavioral hooks, dopamine loops, the relentless
| optimization of the feed. You can see that in the recent
| iterations of ChatGPT. It has become such a sycophant, and
| creates answers and options, that you end up engaging with it.
| That's juicing growth. Facebook style.
|
| This is because ChatGPT is gearing up to sell ads. It's the only
| way to sustain a free chat service in the long term. Ads require
| engagement and usage. Hiring former Meta employees for this is
| smart business - even if HN crowd doesn't like it.
|
| People say OpenAI is burning money and is on the verge of
| collapse. The same people will say OpenAI building an ads
| business on ChatGPT is "enshittifcation". These people are quite
| insufferable, no offense to the many who are exactly as I
| described.
| reactordev wrote:
| 100%. It's about to become the sleaziest used car salesman the
| internet has ever seen.
| deanc wrote:
| AI is ubiquitous to the point where it's permeating almost
| every desk job in the world. Even those who don't work are
| using AI to help them find work, research health problems, ask
| questions about their daily life. I can't think of anything
| else since the invention of the internet that has had this much
| of an impact on people's lives.
|
| People will have to pay for this. I don't see it being free for
| long other than a few chats a day. If most people in the world
| are paying 10-200 bucks a month then AI companies will make
| money, and I doubt they will need to rely much on ads at all.
| pipnonsense wrote:
| Or people are just using as much because it is free.
| bananaflag wrote:
| On the other hand, costs are getting lower with time.
|
| Sort of how now I have an unlimited 5G data plan for like 10
| dollars, and in 2011 I didn't even have Internet on my phone.
| This is happening also with AI.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| Anecdotally I know approximately zero 'normal' (non-tech)
| people who are intentionally using generative AI, several who
| have been badly misled by Google's AI summaries, and quite a
| few who are vehemently anti-AI (usually artists and writers).
|
| (Except when mandated by their employers, which nobody is
| happy about or finds particularly useful.)
| deanc wrote:
| Every single person I know outside of my profession is
| using it, including all relatives of all ages. Even if it's
| at the top of the google search results :)
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| In other words, they need more experts on enshittification.
| pipnonsense wrote:
| So that's why I am getting clickbaity last sentences in every
| response now at ChatGPT.
|
| Things like _"If you want, I can also show a very fast
| Photoshop-style trick in Krita that lets you drag-copy an area
| in one step (without copy /paste). It's hidden but extremely
| useful."_
|
| Every single chat now has it. Not only the conversational
| prompt with "I can continue talking about this", but very
| clickbaity terms like: almost nobody knows about this, you will
| be surprised, all VIPs are now using this car, do you want to
| know which it is? Etc
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| Same here. "Do you want the one useful tip related to this
| topic that most people miss? It's quite surprising."
|
| If it were so useful, just tell me in the first place! If you
| say "Yes" then it's usually just a regurgitation of your
| prior conversation, not actually new information.
|
| This immediately smelled of engagement bait as soon as the
| pattern started recently. It's omnipresent and annoying.
| dostick wrote:
| Yes, ChatGPT just recently started to add these engagement
| phrased follow-ups; "If you want, I can also show you one
| very common sign people miss that tells you..."
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| You can tell it not to do this in your personalized
| context.
|
| The model doesn't always obey it, but 80% of the time it's
| worked for me.
| jjallen wrote:
| This is not just OpenAI though. I don't think this is new in
| general for these AI chat apps. Claude at the very least asks
| a question as the last part of its responses I believe every
| time.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| Those "Prompt-YES-baity" last sentences are somehow
| counterproductive.
| dkrich wrote:
| This and also constantly saying stupid things like "yes that
| is a great observation and that's how the pros do it for this
| very reason!" for a specific question that doesn't apply to
| anything anyone else is doing
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| I find -again- Claude (web) here outstanding & very
| comfortable:
|
| In most of my discussions throughout the day, it doesnt ask
| any "follow up" questions at the end. Very often it says
| thingslike: "you have two options: A - ..... and B - while
| the one includes X and the other Y..."
|
| But this is was OP underlined: Claude is popular amongst
| businesses, most "non-tech" people dont even know that it
| exists.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| The worst are the ones who say things like "OpenAI only has 5%
| paying users!" As if that's a really bad number. That is the
| same ratio YouTube, the world's largest media company, has. And
| ChatGPT has like 800m users after only a few years of
| existence.
|
| And "once they sell ads, they'll lose all their users!" As if
| that happened to FB, Google, YouTube, or Instagram...
|
| Some people are really rooting for the downfall of OpenAI that
| will simply not happen, and their rage makes them utterly
| unreasonable.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > One thing odd, maybe just to me, is why OpenAI has been
| stuffing its ranks with former Facebookers who are known to
| juice growth, find edges, and keep people addicted
|
| There is a very simple answer for this: that's how leadership
| ranks work in SV. When one "leader" moves from Company A to
| Company B, a lot of existing employees are pushed out or
| sidelined, and the ranks are filled with loyalists from
| previous companies. Sometimes this works out, but a lot of time
| it doesn't and it stays that way until another "leader" is
| brought in. What's good for the company doesn't matter unless
| there clear incentives and targets lined out for them.
| rvz wrote:
| The "I" in AGI stands for IPO.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| There's a strong chance the IPO window has passed. I just don't
| see investors willing to jump in here given all the questions
| about the financial viability of AI.
|
| The bulk of those investing now are broadly just pumping cash
| into the fire to keep their prior investments from going to zero.
|
| We have hit a mass deceleration of what the current tech can do
| with transformers. The tech is also on a path to hyper-
| commoditization which will destroy the value of the big players
| as there zero moat to be had here. Absent a new major
| breakthrough it looks like we're well on our way into the "trough
| of disillusionment" for the current AI hype cycle.
|
| Will be interesting to see how all this plays out, but get your
| popcorn ready.
| newsclues wrote:
| Unless the play is the fleece retail investors
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| Retail investors do just fine fleecing themselves on their
| own
|
| The term fleecing means ,,there's nothing left here, jump
| ship". Do you really believe they're going public to cash out
| this early in the game?
| cmiles8 wrote:
| True, although even here there likely aren't enough retail
| suckers to go around given the amount of initial investment
| folks need to cash in. Thats the challenge when you have so
| much crazy pre-IPO cash pumped in.
|
| After you float you still need to sell all those shares at
| the valuations you want to exit. If they floated say 10% of
| shares to go public and the price tanks everyone else trying
| to exit loses their shirt so it's not a magic exit for the
| early investors.
| Ekaros wrote:
| The size of these companies make be doubtful of retail
| being able to fund them. There being enough retail
| investors with enough liquid funds who are willing to jump
| on this.
|
| Lot of retail is in various funds. So those doing active
| management to scale of this is questionable. And then you
| most likely also have downward pressure for those that try
| to bet against these IPOs...
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| There's always the Softbanks of the world.
| newsclues wrote:
| Boomers are the perfect suckers at this point
|
| My boomer mom is the kind of person who just heard about AI
| and would get IPO fomo
| DaedalusII wrote:
| there arent enough retail investors in the world to buy this
| ipo
|
| but they will get a lot of flow from sovereign wealth fund
| and pensions
|
| you might wonder why anthropic spend time in australia, a
| country with less economy than canada and almost no industry
| at all? likely because it has very big pension fund pool to
| buy their ipo
| chollida1 wrote:
| > There's a strong chance the IPO window has passed
|
| Ha, i'll take the other side of that bet. I'm not sure why you
| think they couldn't possibly IPO and you don't really specify
| why in your post.
|
| Having been in the capital markets for 20 years, now is one of
| the better times to IPO and I'd bet that both OpenAI and
| Anthropic will IPO within 12 months.
|
| There are lots of games you can play like releasing a small 10%
| float) if you are worried about not enough buyers.
| cik wrote:
| 100% agreed. There's so much locked up appetite for IPOs,
| both from the tech crowd and the general public. There have
| been very few quality IPOs since COVID frankly.
|
| I'll wager that the IPO market can actually absorb all three
| of these that yes, are the size of the last 10 years
| combined. The trading market itself is larger, as are values,
| and valuations.
|
| I assume that to maximize value you see a standard lock and
| roll play here. The S-1 will declare the 10% release, with
| commentary about future (6 or 12 months) another 5%. Plus
| don't forget institutional. There's ample space here, even
| before the Nasdaq 100 changes that are _probably_ coming into
| play. If those come into play then inflows accelerated, as
| did valuations.
| financetechbro wrote:
| I was in the capital markets during the COVID era, focusing
| on transactions for tech companies. I will take the bet that
| if OAI tries to IPO it will be WeWork 2.0 x100. Get ready for
| an even more creative version of "Community adjusted EBITDA"
|
| On the real though, I am not sure how a 20yr veteran can say
| this is the best time for an IPO. Not only is a 10% float
| still absolutely massive, but the world is extremely unstable
| with the war in Iran and the US is in a recession when you
| factor out inflated growth driven by AI. Not to mention the
| Yen carry trade unwinding - there is so much loaded in the
| economy ready to blow up... I think the facade will collapse
| if OAI actually goes for it.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Umm the yen carry trade unwound in August of 2024. It
| hasn't been a factor in the markets for over a year:)
|
| > On the real though, I am not sure how a 20yr veteran can
| say this is the best time for an IPO.
|
| The best time for an open AI and anthropic ipo. They are
| hot now, the macro environment doesn't weigh into that
| calculus.
|
| Also a 10% float isn't massive, most companies ipo with
| anywhere from 20-40% of their total share count.
|
| And being a 20 year veteran means you can cut through all
| the noise you mention and focuse in what matters. At all
| most all points in History there is doom and gloom, 20
| years gives you the experience to know most of the doom and
| gloom never matters.
|
| You go public when you get the chance.
|
| I appreciate you comment and I hope I helped update your
| understanding of how things work!!
| financetechbro wrote:
| Current valuation of OAI is $840bn. 10% float is $80bn,
| largest US IPO was BABA at $24bn, how is this not
| massive?
| chollida1 wrote:
| Oh, sorry I thought you meant the percentage would be
| huge.
|
| Yes it's a big ipo but early indications are that they'd
| be about 2x over subscribed if they ipo'd today from what
| the sell side is saying and I don't doubt it from what
| other funds are saying.
| financetechbro wrote:
| Ah understood. It will be fascinating to see how this
| plays out... OAI needs money one way or another. Thanks
| for the discourse
| mattfrommars wrote:
| Agreed. This year around is the best time for OpenAI related
| firm to IPO. The stock market has been resilient reaching and
| hovering around ATH. Along with them, SpaceX plans to IPO and
| will force index fund to purchase their shares at trillion
| dollar evaluation.
|
| OpenAI and SpaceX firms need exit liquidity - and markets are
| ready!
|
| My advise for retails folks is to stay invested in the market
| since these trillion dollar companies cannot afford market to
| tank at all.
| 7thpower wrote:
| You must be living on a different planet than me. Enterprises
| are just now seeing that these technologies can actually have
| an impact, and the companies do not have a discretionary cost
| cap the same way consumers/hobbyists do, so they will pay based
| on value.
| badgersnake wrote:
| I would expect a lot of smart money to flow out of the
| Nasdaq-100 trackers in anticipation of this grift.
| DaedalusII wrote:
| nasdaq listings can be rough, not sure if anyone remember fb
| ipo
|
| but how else will they own spacex, openai, anthropic, nvidia,
| in such concentration
| pera wrote:
| The Private Equity world already has a solution for this:
|
| _Nasdaq 's Shame_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392550
| aurareturn wrote:
| There's a strong chance the IPO window has passed. I just don't
| see investors willing to jump in here given all the questions
| about the financial viability of AI.
|
| My guess, it has barely started. I think nearly all AI IPOs
| have done well so far.
| spacecadet wrote:
| As I said, from AGI to IPO and everyone will forget and move on.
| pop_calc wrote:
| Is it just me, or has Om become almost entirely unreadable of
| late? This post is 80% posturing about the WSJ's 'narrative' and
| 20% vague metaphors about 'souls' and 'spigots'. It's essentially
| tech-themed poetry. I appreciate he's cynical about the AI hype
| cycle, but there's absolutely no signal here. Ben Thompson might
| be equally enamoured with his own voice, but he at least tethers
| his ego to actual unit economics and a framework you can test. Om
| is just sharing a mood board and calling it analysis
| chirau wrote:
| How does a non-employee get exposure to the OpenAI IPO?
| DaedalusII wrote:
| simple, just have a private bank relationship
|
| jpm and gs will let you open an account in the us if you have
| $50m cash
| avnfish wrote:
| There are some side-bet experiments like $2Mn on
| Hyperliquid[1], $1Mn on Polymarket[2] which are available to
| everyone. Unfortunately companies stay private for longer these
| days and a seat at the big boy table is de facto impossible
|
| [1] https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/trade/vntl:OPENAI
|
| [2] https://polymarket.com/event/openai-ipo-closing-market-
| cap-a...
| zurfer wrote:
| Buy public openai investors, e.g. Microsoft. It's diluted but
| easy.
| jrjeksjd8d wrote:
| The quoted revenue numbers seem insane, but I guess it's the
| result of corporate deals where every developer seat is hundreds
| of dollars a month?
|
| My job has been publicly promoting who's on top of the "AI use
| dashboard" while our whole product falls apart. Surely this house
| of cards has to collapse at some point, better get public money
| before it does.
| MeetingsBrowser wrote:
| At least I'm not alone.
|
| My company has a vibe coded leaderboard tracking AI usage.
|
| Our token usage and number of lines changed will affect our
| performance review this year.
| dgellow wrote:
| Could you both name and shame?
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Name pretty much any company. Every one of my friends have
| said their company is doing this. Across 3 countries mind
| you. Especially if they already use microsoft office suite.
| Those folks got sold copilot on a deal it seems.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Opposite. Everyone of my friend's companies don't do
| this. They all work at smaller companies though, which I
| bet is the difference.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > Our token usage and number of lines changed will affect our
| performance review this year.
|
| The AI-era equivalent of that old Dilbert strip about
| rewarding developers directly for fixing bugs ("I'm gonna
| write me a new mini-van this afternoon!") just substitute
| intentional bug creation with setting up a simple agent loop
| to burn tokens on random unnecessary refactoring.
| jrjeksjd8d wrote:
| I have started using the most token-intensive model I can
| find and asking for complicated tasks (rewrite this large
| codebase, review the resulting code, etc.)
|
| The agent will churn in a loop for a good 15-20 minutes and
| make the leaderboard number go up. The result is verbose and
| useless but it satisfies the metrics from leadership.
| MeetingsBrowser wrote:
| Congrats on becoming AI native
| tyleo wrote:
| ChatGPT seems to have become a LinkedIn lunatic. I just asked
| Opus and ChatGPT to explain bitonic sort:
|
| Opus: Let me build an interactive explainer for bitonic sort
| (builds diagram/no nonsense)
|
| GPT:
|
| "This algorithm feels weird but once you see it it clicks"
|
| (Emoji) The Core Idea ...; (Emoji) High-Level Flow ...; (Emoji)
| Superpower ...; (Emoji) Why You Should Care;
|
| "If you want, I can: ... (things it wants me to do next)"
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| OpenAI needs to focus on how Claude is leaving them in the dust
| for LLM assisted coding.
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| .... did you read the post? Half of it is about this
| uncacheable8874 wrote:
| old article but still relevant. some things don't change
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| It's from yesterday
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| In general "stickyness" among developers isn't that high, the way
| it is for consumers. Or the insane stickyness in "big boy
| contracts" government, accenture, etc,.
|
| So I feel like the company which does these huge contracts will
| at the end eat up the coding business for nothing. The only way
| to avoid that is for anthropic to build up a huge IP lead in the
| code agent space. That is too difficult in my opinion. Because
| its hard to get exclusive access to code itself, the data
| advantage is not going to be there. Compute advantage is also
| difficult. And it's very difficult to hold on to architectural IP
| advantages in the LLM space.
|
| Even if you get yourself embedded deep into traditional coding
| workflows (integrations with VCS, CI, IDEs, code forges, etc),
| usually SW infrastructure tends to like things decoupled through
| interfaces. Example: the most popular way to using code agents is
| the separate TUI application claude code which `cat`s and `grep`s
| your code. MCP, etc,. This means substitute-ability which is bad
| news.
|
| I was thinking of ways these companies can actually get the
| coding business. One idea I had was to make proprietary context
| management tools that collect information over time and keep them
| permanent. And proprietary ways to correctly access them when
| needed. Here lock-in is real - you do the usual sleazy company
| things, you make it difficult to migrate "org understanding" out
| of your data format (it might even be technically difficult in
| reality). And that way there is perpetual lock-in. It even
| compounds over time. "Switch to my competitor and start your
| understanding from scratch reducing productivity by 37%, OR agree
| to my increased prices!". But amazing context management for
| coding tools is yet to be developed. Right now it is mostly
| slicing and combining a few markdown files, and `grep`, which is
| not exactly IP.
|
| "The moat is state"
| sireat wrote:
| The latest clickbait style can be mitigated by custom
| instructions. I use: "Tell it like it is; don't sugar-coat
| responses. Use academic university level explanations unless
| instructed otherwise. Do not end with teaser offers or curiosity
| hooks. Give the full answer immediately. If related topics exist,
| show them as a brief bullet list. Use professional language and
| style."
|
| Now I actually often like the related topics hooks, just not the
| clickbaity version from last few weeks.
|
| If not for Codex performing so well for me from VS Code I'd
| happily migrate to Claude or Gemini.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I got an ad for the first time in ChatGPT yesterday. Expected,
| but no thanks, I'm already done with this new focus.
| tmatsuzaki wrote:
| I feel like OpenAI has been executing extremely well since it
| started leaning harder into Codex.
|
| Right now, the people who really see it are power users of AI and
| software engineers. Most equity investors still don't seem to get
| it.
|
| It feels like the calm before the storm. A lot of the groundwork
| is being laid quietly beneath the surface.
|
| And at least in the country where I live, I can already feel real
| momentum building around enterprise adoption, both in terms of
| partnerships and go-to-market structure.
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