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Comment by randomtoast | Hacker News Reader

> as part of the startup’s [OpenAI's] efforts to raise up to $100 billion

At this stage, why not go public? Yes, they would need to manage quarterly financial reports and answer to shareholders, but they have reached a size where they are in the top 20 range on the NASDAQ. These public companies doing well, so it seems like a logical next step.

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The reporting creates "transparency" - there are 1000s of analyst ready to pounce on this (with AI assistant). What skeletons would they find?

I think they are still crazy r&d heavy, which it's not what investors like to hear. Investor pressure would make them stagnate from r&d side

On the other hand they would probably set things up in a way where they still control all the voting power

Okay, but I don't think we can call OpenAI a startup until it has reached the number one spot on NASDAQ with a $5 trillion valuation. Therefore, I believe now is a good time to focus on more realistic fundamentals, rather than fueling the hype by burning even more cash on the way to the absolute top, which is typical bubble mentality.

I actually think the public markets have a lot less faith in openai than softbank does. They need these crazy investors. Public markets would not value openai at $1.4trn. So they can't go public. It would reveal how bad things are.

I used to hold this theory, but apparently Anthropic are planning to IPO, and surely both of them would be valued similarly?

Anthropic don't have all the free users, but they're also raising absurd amounts and have similar costs.

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