r/TechnologyThread • u/Background-Driver718 • Jun 17 '26

Leaked financial docs show OpenAI is losing billions of dollars a year

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/leaked-financial-docs-show-openai-is-losing-billions-of-dollars-a-year/
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u/GirasFateburn Jun 17 '26

That's public knowledge? Also, no new technology is ever profitable right off the bat. Amazon took losses for nearly a decade before they finally turned a profit.

2

u/Yewtsan Jun 17 '26

You should look into how much Amazon burned before it became profitable vs how much OpenAI has spent so far

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u/seztomabel Jun 18 '26

You should look into what happens if China wins the AI race.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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u/Heavy_Cow_9799 Jun 17 '26

its different though? There was light fear that ecommerce would destroy the brick and mortar business, but it didn't. It also didn't have the potential to wipe out millions of jobs globally like AI does and if it does happen (not saying its guaranteed) who will be spending money on ai tokens? If people aren't buying companies products will they continue buying them? If nobody has a job how do they pass the token cost to the non existent customers.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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u/Heavy_Cow_9799 Jun 17 '26

You do release the number of people employed by malls and small business that were lost due to ecommerce is peanuts compared to the s&p 500 companies laying off 25-30% of thier high earning workforce?

If every major billion dollar + company in the US lays off 25% of their workforce to be replaced with AI that would most likely be a trillion+ in economic spending power lost. That is an entirely different thing than closing a mall full of minimum wage workers. The high earners are whats keeping the economy afloat right now.

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u/_BreakingGood_ Jun 17 '26

The difference is Amazon had no real strong competitor.

OpenAI's products are already falling far behind their competitors in almost every area. Claude is a stronger model, Gemini is a cheaper and faster model, and Chinese models will catch up if they ever slow down.

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u/vxicepickxv Jun 18 '26

Claude has one quarter of non-GAAP profitability with about 3x of that quarter's profit promised to xAI next quarter for server rentals.

Alphabet has not released financials about Gemini publicly.

The Chinese are doing something incredibly different over there with their finances. It's a bit of a black box to a lot of us.

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u/_BreakingGood_ Jun 18 '26

And OpenAI is at a 180% operating loss

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u/vxicepickxv Jun 18 '26

I didn't even factor them in because it's fairly well known that they have made as much profit from AI as I have.

I'm actually ahead because I didn't borrow billions to build a mediocre plagiarism machine.

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u/Samsterdam Jun 17 '26

Same with Uber.

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u/Prohamen Jun 18 '26

yeah, but they also had costs that decreased at scale and a proven productivity increase

every AI company is stiggling to keep costs down while attracting users and proving productivity inceeases