OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was extremely bullish about the startup’s revenue projections and indicated he would relish the opportunity to take on his haters.
“We’re doing well more revenue than that,” Altman replied.
While OpenAI continues to raise tens of billions of dollars from investors and generate billions more in revenue, Altman has also warned losses will persist.
But on the Bg2 Pod, Altman quickly followed up his comment on OpenAI’s revenue with forceful pushback against those who doubt his company.
“We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply,” he said. “We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science [and] will create huge value.”
Altman added that one of the rare instances when being a publicly traded company would be appealing is when there’s an opportunity for short-sellers to lose big.
“I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that,” he said.
Still, Altman acknowledged OpenAI is taking a risk and could stumble, noting that if it doesn’t obtain enough computing capacity then revenue may fall short of forecasts.
But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who also appeared on the podcast, said OpenAI has exceeded all the business plans that he has seen.
“Everyone talks about all the success and the usage and what have you,” he said. “But even I’d say all up, the business execution has been just pretty unbelievable.”
Later in the conversation, Altman hinted at even more explosive revenue growth in the next few years.
While talking about the potential for OpenAI to go public in the coming years, Bg2 host Gerstner floated revenue estimates topping $100 billion a year in 2028 or 2029.
“How about ’27?” Altman interjected.
