WSJ: ‘Apple Is No Longer in Talks to Join OpenAI Investment Round’

Tom Dotan and Berber Jin, reporting late last night for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

Apple is no longer in talks to participate in an OpenAI funding round expected to raise as much as $6.5 billion, an 11th hour end to what would have been a rare investment by the iPhone maker in another major Silicon Valley company. Apple recently fell out of the talks to join the round, which is slated to close next week, according to a knowledgeable person.

I just observed the other day that the tumultuous (to say the least) leadership situation at OpenAI seems incongruous with Apple’s.

Also surely related, to some degree, is this report on OpenAI’s financials that dropped yesterday from Mike Isaac and Erin Griffith at The New York Times:

OpenAI’s monthly revenue hit $300 million in August, up 1,700 percent since the beginning of 2023, and the company expects about $3.7 billion in annual sales this year, according to financial documents reviewed by The New York Times. OpenAI estimates that its revenue will balloon to $11.6 billion next year.

But it expects to lose roughly $5 billion this year after paying for costs related to running its services and other expenses like employee salaries and office rent, according to an analysis by a financial professional who has also reviewed the documents. Those numbers do not include paying out equity-based compensation to employees, among several large expenses not fully explained in the documents.

Rob Pike, on Mastodon:

OpenAI: We lose a little on every sale but we make it up in volume.

★ Saturday, 28 September 2024