OpenAI Is Just Another Boring, Desperate AI Startup

Summary

What is OpenAI?I realize you might say "a foundation model lab" or "the company that runs ChatGPT," but that doesn't really give the full picture of everything it’s promised, or claimed, or leaked that it was or would be.No, really, if you believe its leaks to the press...OpenAI is a social media company, this week launching Sora 2, a social feed entirely made up of generative video.OpenAI is a workplace productivity company, allegedly working on its own productivity suite to compete with Microsoft.OpenAI is a jobs portal, announcing in September it was "developing an AI-powered hiring platform," which it will launch 'by mid-2026.OpenAI is an ads company, and is apparently trying to hire an an ads chief, with the (alleged) intent to start showing ads in ChatGPT "by 2026."OpenAI is a company that would sell AI compute like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, or at least is considering being one, with CFO Sarah Friar telling Bloomberg in August that it is not "actively looking" at such an effort today but will "think about it as a business down the line, for sure."OpenAI is a fabless semiconductor design company, launching its own AI chips in, again, 2026 with Broadcom, but only for internal use.OpenAI is a consumer hardware company, preparing to launch a device by the end of 2026 or early 2027 and hiring a bunch of Apple people to work on it, as well as considering — again, it’s just leaking random stuff at this point to pump up its value — a smart speaker, a voice recorder and AR glasses.OpenAI is also working on its own browser, I guess.To be clear, many of these are ideas that OpenAI has leaked specifically so the media can continue to pump up its valuation and continue to raise the money it needs — at least $1 Trillion over the next four or five years, and I don't believe the theoretical (or actual) costs of many of the things I've listed are included.OpenAI wants you to believe it is everything, because in reality it’s a company bereft of strategy, focus or ...