Sam Altman says ‘enough’ to questions about OpenAI’s revenue

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said the company is doing “well over” $13 billion in annual revenue — and he got a bit testy when pressed about how it will pay for its huge spending commitments.

At that time, his comments came up A joint interview Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the Bg2 podcast about the partnership between their two companies. Host Brad Gerstner (who is the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) The report states that the company currently has revenues of around $13 billion — a large amount, but one that OpenAI is spending on $1 trillion in spending commitments for computing infrastructure over the next decade.

“First of all, we’re making more than that,” Altman said. “Secondly, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer. I just – enough. I think there are a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares.”

“Including myself,” Gartner interrupted.

Altman then added that there are critics who “talk with a lot of breathless concern about whether our compute staff or our stock might be thrilled to buy.”

In fact, he said that while it’s “not very often” that he wants OpenAI to become a public company, “the rare times it’s interesting are when those people write this ridiculous ‘OpenAI is going out of business.’ [posts]I’d tell them they could just short the stock and I’d love to see them burn it.”

Altman acknowledged that there are ways the company “could screw it up” — for example by failing to get access to enough computing resources — but he said that “revenues are growing exponentially.”

“We’re making a headway bet that it will continue to grow, and it won’t just be ChatGPT growing, but that we’ll be able to be an important AI cloud, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science will create huge value,” he added.

Nadella, who laughed off most of Altman’s answers, also claimed that OpenAI “beaten” every business plan it gave Microsoft as an investor.

Gartner returned to OpenAI’s revenue and IPO plans later in the interview, when he projected the company’s revenue to reach $100 billion in 2028 or 2029.

“How’s ’27?” Altman countered.

At the same time, he denied reports that OpenAI plans to go public next year.

“No, no, we don’t have anything specific,” Altman said. “I’m a realist, I guess it will happen one day, but I don’t know why people write these reports. We don’t have a date in mind, we don’t have a board decision to do it or anything like that. I just assume where things will eventually go.”