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Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD | Hacker News Reader

Do we actually know that OpenAI is in serious financial difficulty?

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49526069

Shower thought: I wonder if this whole "OpenAI is in serious financial difficulty" thing is a psyop so people will relax and avoid doing what's necessary to stop them.

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OpenAI was in serious financial difficulty in 2024/2025 but that's no longer true in 2026. Their revenue blew up massively in the past couple months and their ARR passed $40B/yr.

Most people haven't updated their priors and are fixated on outdated information.

yeah and antropic s1 is going to shock many people, its going to be an eyeopener

however there is the open source cheaper token threat

> yeah and antropic s1 is going to shock many people, its going to be an eyeopener

I am looking forward to audited financial statements. Like, all the interesting stuff will be buried in notes, but they'll have to actually calculate real revenue, not the nonsense that is ARR.

These tools are useful, but I find it hard to see how OpenAI/Anthropic justify their valuations.

Apparently Anthropic's may be this week (the S-1) as they've finished picking all their bankers.

OpenAI lost $12.3B in Q2 2026, which if you extrapolate losses the way they extrapolate revenue, implies north of $40B in losses for FY2026, against their own projection of $14B for the year. Coupled with their postponed IPO (which would have required significant public financial disclosures), and the very recent exit of two high-placed executives, I stand by the assertion that they are in serious financial difficulty.

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