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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

$100B is crazy, no one would buy OpenAI for $100B.

Why not? My ChatGPT to google usage is easily 10 to 1 at this point. How long will it be until everyone is basically doing the same thing as I am?

IMO this is because Google is kind of shit now, because of ChatGPT and LLM spam in general. It's hard to find information on Google that isn't shallow attention thievery. I mean, finding a recipe that doesn't start with "the year is 1974. I was just born" is near impossible these days.

Google seo spam predates LLM's.

Right, but it's undeniable that LLM's are a core part, if not the most important part, of modern SEO spam. Particularly because they're much harder to spot.

That would only be meaningful if ChatGPT made as much money as Google did per query (as is, I believe they lose money on each, so they can hardly make it up in volume).

They could throw an ad platform on it in 5 minutes if they wanted to.

LOL

It took Google 15 years to build an ad empire.

And they still have trouble filling ad slots on YouTube.

You think ChatGPT is just going to "turn on" $100B in online ad spending overnight?

That's not how it works.

Why do you think it would take so long to throw an ad system on ChatGPT?

Personally, if I could buy OpenAI stock at 100B market cap right now, I would back up the truck.

adding ads is easy, adding ads that work is not.

Google can easily monetize a search for "dentist in $city" where your intent is to spend money, OpenAI would have to monetize "sum up this email" where money is not involved at all.

If you have enough eyeballs on your pixels you can make money on ads. They are just deliberately choosing not to do it (Altman has made statements to this effect).

> If you have enough eyeballs on your pixels you can make money on ads.

sure, but Google makes _way_ more money than X or Reddit or Pornhub, not all eye gazes are the same.

Which would slow down user uptake, I imagine.

I don't think it's fair. There many $100B+ companies with less IP, and much less access to talent. I don't even see people lining up to work for Apple or dreaming to work for Google anymore.

Perhaps Microsoft, so they can push the losses to the shareholders of Microsoft instead of their own balance sheet.

Microsoft only gave them an exorbitant price because they were paying in Azure credits for GPUs. That's something like a 50% discount for Microsoft compared to giving them cash, and it also incentivizes OpenAI to continue using their stuff after the credits are burned through.

I’ve heard Microsoft customers got burned by this. GPU availability and inference workloads is prioritized for OpenAI

They would have, 1.5 years back. Now there are other players in town.

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