OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in new funding as part of a fundraising round that valued the AI developer at more than $150 billion. That figure would make it one of the most valuable companies in the United States, on par with publicly traded companies like AT&T, Pfizer, and Comcast.
OpenAI’s surging valuation is in part down to its large customer base — documents reviewed by the New York Times showed the company has approximately 350 million monthly users and projects to pull in $3.7 billion in revenue this year (though the company still expects to lose about $5 billion in 2024) — but also due to promises of a significant change in the lab’s structure. Founded as a nonprofit company in 2015, OpenAI created a “capped-profit” subsidiary — owned and overseen by the nonprofit — in 2019 to help it more effectively fund its research. As part of the new fundraising round, the company told investors it would restructure and become a more traditional for-profit company within the next two years. The nonprofit would hold a minority stake in the restructured for-profit, but its board would no longer control the direction of the company.
Despite the massive investment round, it’s not all roses at OpenAI. Mira Murati, the lab’s CTO, announced her departure from the company late last month. She is the latest high-ranking executive to step away from OpenAI — Chief Scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever left in May, and President and fellow co-founder Greg Brockman is on extended leave. While those executives haven’t named the specific reasons for their departures, a Wall Street Journal report pointed to internal tensions between mission-oriented researchers concerned with safety testing and careful launches and the more traditional, growth-focused approach spearheaded by CEO Sam Altman. Whatever the internal situation, investors don’t seem too concerned yet.
More: A.I. Pioneers Call for Protections Against ‘Catastrophic Risks’ | OpenAI’s Advantage over Rival AI Companies Vanishes, Report Finds
This newsletter excerpt is from the October 17, 2024, edition of policy.ai — CSET’s newsletter on artificial intelligence, emerging technology, and security policy, written by Alex Friedland. Other stories from this edition include:
- Governor Newsom Vetoes Sweeping AI Regulation, SB 1047
- DOD Announces Replicator 2 — Counter-Drone Defenses the Focus
- Commerce Considering Country-Specific Chip Export Caps
- FTC Cracks Down on AI Over-Promising
- OMB Issues Guidance on Responsible AI Acquisition
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