OpenAI Fundraising Set to Vault Startup's Value to $150B | Hacker News Reader

OpenAI Fundraising Set to Vault Startup's Value to $150B

bloomberg.com

29 pointsfoobarqux20 comments

That’s a massive valuation.

Are they preparing for a potential down turn, else at this level they might be setting themselves for a down round. Unless people believe that OpenAI could be the first $1T valuation startup

Unicorns are $1B valuation startups. What’s a good name for a $1T valuation startup? God Statup?

Kilocorn

Phoenix? Might burst into flames at any point, but will likely be reborn in some form from the ashes

Love this!

Unicorns were supposed to be mythical creatures, which Phoenix is too - so that works.

But Phoenix has a negative connotation with the burning into flames part. Not sure if many startups would like to call them Phoenixes :)

What about pegasus? Even better would be a pegacorn/alicorn, but not enough people are familiar with those names. It seems like the natural next step would be a unicorn that's taken flight.

https://archive.is/m51N9

When OpenAI borrows money does it just get immediately spent on salary and azure invoices, or is there some other infrastructure that they are building up?

Didn't Microsoft invest $1 Billion Dollars into OpenAI Company/Foundation/Scam too?

What are they burning all this cash on?

I guess the infrastructure is called Stargate.

I hope they fall in and we never hear from them again.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-openai-planning...

I don't understand why they need a 5 billion dollar revolving credit facility.

I guess it's a reasonable enough financing decision for a fast growing pre-IPO company which cannot issue public debt. Gives them optionality and access to short-term debt at likely favorable terms, as I imagine banks are trying to please them however they can to win future mandates

Higher free cash flow bolsters the upside case for the next raise

$150b is enough to buy every single human alive 3 Big Macs. I wish VCs would make this happen rather than pouring $$ into OpenAI.

I don't think a company should be raising funding at this level because it implies that at some eventual IPO the market cap will be $750B or more--no private investors are going in looking for less than 5x return. Honestly any valuation over, say, $50B should be in the public markets.

Do you believe public markets create better value for society than private ones?

retail investors may be not as efficient as private professional investors, but public markets allow retail investors to participate in wealth creation.

It will IPO once the “accredited investor” class have an inkling that the company has ~2 years of good growth left so they can make it past the lockup period and ride off into the sunset. Rinse and repeat. There is so much private capital out there, the only reason to go public is because retail investor folks lack the means for proper diligence & restitution.

funding -> IPO is relatively short term gain, where private investors indeed have significant advantage.

But there is also long term gain: 10-100y after IPO stocks in your 401k like google, facebook, tesla, microsoft, ibm, etc.

For a company like OpenAI I do. Especially in regards to the greater scrutiny.

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