I feel like, given how poorly techies view OAI and its executive team, they'd be better off not releasing PR (ie., IPO-farming) announcements like this.

If you've got something objectively monumental to announce then sure I guess (I mean, most of us will just assume OAI is lying/exaggerating), but nobody takes the OAI propaganda seriously. You might even say this is not how you make your first billion.