👀 What is going on at OpenAI?

Most of the top players have left OpenAI. CTO Mira Murati announced her departure on Wednesday, alongside VP of Research Barret Zoph and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew. OpenAI is turning into a for-profit benefit corp and Sam Altman will get equity worth billions for the first time. The truth is, we don’t know what is going on at the organisation. But today I want to share some considerations to help us think about state of the firm.

Sep 28th: I’ve added a note about reporting on OpenAI’s revenue growth.

1. OpenAI is NOT falling apart.

The claim that OpenAI is en route to a corporate calamity is, at best, clickbait. OpenAI is one of the fastest-growing companies in history. It doubled its ARR to $3.4 billion in the first six months of the year. If you’ve ever run a company, you’ll know how difficult it is to get anywhere near this growth rate. It’s got revenue resiliency from corporates and consumers directly. It signed a deal with the US government on AI research and testing. If tha…