>OpenAI has contracted to purchase an incremental $250B of Azure services, and Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
I have no idea what @sama is doing but he's doing it quite well.
Spare me. Sam has been talking about ChatGPT already being AGI for ages, meanwhile still peddling this duplicitous talk about how AGI is coming despite it apparently already being here. Can we act like grownups and treat this like a normal tool? No, no we cannot, for Sam is a hype merchant.
If we assume token providers are becoming more and more of a commodity service these days, it seems telling that OpenAI specifically decided to claw out consumer hardware.
Perhaps their big bet is that their partnership with Jony Ive will create the first post-phone hardware device that consumers attach themselves with, and then build an ecosystem around that?
> Once AGI is declared by OpenAI, that declaration will now be verified by an independent expert panel.
By the time we get 30% global unemployment and another financial crash along the way in the next decade, only then OpenAI would have already declared "AGI".
> Microsoft holds an investment in OpenAI Group PBC valued at approximately $135 billion, representing roughly 27 percent on an as-converted diluted basis
It seems like Microsoft stock is then the most straightforward way to invest in OpenAI pre-IPO.
This also confirms the $500 billion valuation making OpenAI the most valuable private startup in the world.
Now many of the main AI companies have decent ownership by public companies or are already public.
So Microsoft went from 49% to now 27%? Open AI with their non-profit and their for-profit and all these investments and deals they are doing. It feels like they are spending more time doing financial trickery than building AI products.
> OpenAI has contracted to purchase an incremental $250B of Azure services, and Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
So OpenAI could be on Google (GCP) and AWS, and possibly Claude and Gemini on Azure? that could be a good thing.
I use OpenRouter in multiple applications, the practicality of having one provider to host all possible LLMs is such a win to try and iterate without having to switch the cloud (big for enterprise who are stuck with one cloud provider)
Especially so if the Non-profit foundation doesn't retain voting control, this remains the greatest theft of all time. I still can't quite understand how it should at all be possible.
Looking at the changes for MSFT, I also mostly don't understand why they did it!
The nonprofit will own 26%, and a warrant that it will get more shares if the share price grows more than 10 times after 15 years. Sam Altman is getting no shares as part of this restructuring.
> Once AGI is declared by OpenAI, that declaration will now be verified by an independent expert panel.
What were they really expecting as an alternative? Anyone can "declare AGI" especially since it's an inherently ill-defined (and agruably undefinable) concept, it's strange that this is the first bullet point like this was the fruit of intensive deliberation.
I don't fully understand what is going on in this market as a whole, I really doubt anyone does, but I do believe we will look back on this period and wonder what the hell we were thinking believing and lapping up everything these corporations were putting out.
So now OpenAI is committed to spending $550 billion dollars? ($300B to Oracle and $250B to MS). If it currently has ~$10B in revenue / year, how on earth can it meet these commitments?
They stated the total commitment is 1.4 trillion in their live stream about the restructuring and mentioned an IPO as the most likely path to get that amount of funding.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 68.7 ms ] threadhttps://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter...
Also: Built to Benefit Everyone — by Bret Taylor, Chair of the OpenAI Board of Directors
https://openai.com/index/built-to-benefit-everyone
I have no idea what @sama is doing but he's doing it quite well.
I wonder what criteria that panel will use to define/resolve this.
Spare me. Sam has been talking about ChatGPT already being AGI for ages, meanwhile still peddling this duplicitous talk about how AGI is coming despite it apparently already being here. Can we act like grownups and treat this like a normal tool? No, no we cannot, for Sam is a hype merchant.
Perhaps their big bet is that their partnership with Jony Ive will create the first post-phone hardware device that consumers attach themselves with, and then build an ecosystem around that?
What's the value in investing in a smaller company and then giving up things produced off that investment when the company grows?
The question is does this reflect an increase or decrease in confidence at OpenAI wrt them achieving AGI?
By the time we get 30% global unemployment and another financial crash along the way in the next decade, only then OpenAI would have already declared "AGI".
Likely with in the 2030 - 2035 timeframe.
It seems like Microsoft stock is then the most straightforward way to invest in OpenAI pre-IPO.
This also confirms the $500 billion valuation making OpenAI the most valuable private startup in the world.
Now many of the main AI companies have decent ownership by public companies or are already public.
- OpenAI -> Microsoft (27%)
- Anthropic -> Amazon (15-19% est), Alphabet/Google (14%)
Then the chip layer is largely already public: Nvidia. Plus AMD and Broadcom.
Clouds too: Oracle, Alphabet/GCP, Microsoft/Azure, CoreWeave.
While not unexpected, this is exciting and intriguing.
And of course, looking forward to Microsoft's Zune AI.
OpenAI self-evaluated to $500B;
Microsoft commitment for $250B of services, a.k.a still 50% of that value is somewhat locked;
AGI still undefined;
Some more kicking of the can toward the future when it comes to payments;
Both have more freedom to do research and offer services;
Overall, lots of magic money talk with pinkie promise in the future and somewhat higher possibility of new products and open weights models.
So OpenAI could be on Google (GCP) and AWS, and possibly Claude and Gemini on Azure? that could be a good thing.
I use OpenRouter in multiple applications, the practicality of having one provider to host all possible LLMs is such a win to try and iterate without having to switch the cloud (big for enterprise who are stuck with one cloud provider)
I've read this but it's extremely vague: https://openai.com/index/built-to-benefit-everyone/
As is this: https://openai.com/our-structure/
Especially so if the Non-profit foundation doesn't retain voting control, this remains the greatest theft of all time. I still can't quite understand how it should at all be possible.
Looking at the changes for MSFT, I also mostly don't understand why they did it!
> OpenAI remains Microsoft’s frontier model partner and Microsoft continues to have exclusive IP rights and Azure API exclusivity
This should be the headline - Microsoft maintains its financial and intellectual stranglehold on OpenAI.
And meanwhile, while vaguer, a few of the bullet points are potentially very favorable to Microsoft:
> Microsoft can now independently pursue AGI alone or in partnership with third parties.
> The revenue share agreement remains until the expert panel verifies AGI, though payments will be made over a longer period of time.
Hard to say what a "longer period of time" means, but I presume it is substantial enough to make this a major concession from OpenAI.
What were they really expecting as an alternative? Anyone can "declare AGI" especially since it's an inherently ill-defined (and agruably undefinable) concept, it's strange that this is the first bullet point like this was the fruit of intensive deliberation.
I don't fully understand what is going on in this market as a whole, I really doubt anyone does, but I do believe we will look back on this period and wonder what the hell we were thinking believing and lapping up everything these corporations were putting out.
GPT-OSS:20b is a great model for local use. OpenAI continuing to release open weights is good news.
Just look at how they write it and they are somehow sneaking a NEW organizational level in there
>First, Microsoft supports the OpenAI board moving forward with formation of a public benefit corporation (PBC) and recapitalization.
Does anyone have any clue how OpenAI is actually governed and who works for who and all that?
It’s kafkaesque at best and intentionally confusing, so that you can’t actually regulate it, at worst