The latest financing agreement of OpenAI includes a provision that the company must transform into a fully profitable entity within the next two years, otherwise investors can demand a refund of their funds.
By: Youxin
OpenAI has now become one of the most valuable companies in Silicon Valley and is about to complete a new round of $65 billion in financing at a valuation of $150 billion! Sam Altman is asking investors to pay at least $250 million.
Details of OpenAI's latest financing agreement
According to the latest report from the Financial Times, the latest financing agreement of OpenAI includes a provision that the company must transform into a fully profitable entity within the next two years, otherwise investors can demand a refund of their funds!
On one hand, relinquishing control of the non-profit organization will make OpenAI's operations more like a typical startup company; on the other hand, this change at OpenAI will also be welcomed by investors who have invested billions of dollars in the company.
OpenAI stated that it is currently working with the board to ensure that it is in the best position to fulfill the company's mission, and the non-profit organization remains at the core of the mission and will continue to be preserved.
According to Reuters, the non-profit board of OpenAI will further relinquish control, but retain a minority stake in the new for-profit OpenAI. CEO Sam Altman will also receive a 7% stake for the first time, which at the latest valuation is worth about $10.5 billion.
Altman called the news absurd, or implied that the proportion was too high. Altman told some employees on Thursday that he should not take equity, but had "good reasons," although he did not elaborate. However, investors are pushing for equity grants to align his financial interests with those of OpenAI.
Behind the loss of core technical staff
Following the departure of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati on Wednesday, this was followed by Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and late-stage training director Barret Zoph, which further triggered changes in the OpenAI leadership, leaving only two of its 11 founders.
The news of Murati's departure also shocked many employees at OpenAI. Within the internal Slack channel at OpenAI, several employees responded to this news with "WTF" emoticons.
It is reported that Murati had resolved differences between the company's security team and product team during the release process, and the departure of core technical staff could have a profound impact on OpenAI and its position in the AI competition. In addition, the relevant technical leaders who previously reported to Murati and McGrew will now report to Altman.
In a memo to employees on Wednesday, Altman stated that he would be more involved in "the company's technical and product parts," whereas previously he had mainly focused on "non-technical" aspects such as financing, government relations, and business partnerships with companies like Microsoft and Apple.
Since the release of the o1 series models, OpenAI has received much praise, and its enterprise software business has grown rapidly, making competitors like Google and Anthropic envious.
Several OpenAI employees stated that Altman is urging the team to quickly translate breakthroughs into public products, which has put pressure on employees as they have to work overtime on evenings and weekends to launch products in a short period of time.
It is reported that Sam Altman has appointed Mark Chen as the new Senior Vice President of Research, and appointed Josh Achiam as the new Task Coordination Officer, the latter being promoted from a research scientist. OpenAI also recently appointed a new CPO, Kevin Weil, and CFO, Sarah Friar.
Current and former OpenAI employees stated that this personnel change also reflects the growing pains OpenAI has encountered in its development. From a non-profit research lab established in 2015, it has transformed into a company with over 1600 employees, increasingly focused on increasing revenue, with approximately 750 employees as of November 2023.
Many of these employees come from traditional tech companies, having held various positions in sales and developer support at traditional tech companies, while OpenAI's initial employees mainly came from the AI research and AI security community.
In recent years, OpenAI employees and former employees have cashed out over $1.2 billion by selling their profit units to other investors (once the company becomes profitable, they can receive a portion of the company's profits), without any restrictions on stock options or other traditional forms of equity.
Building a trillion-dollar data center
Returning to the latest $65 billion oversubscribed investment round for OpenAI, the UAE's MGX is one of the potential investors, with other investors including Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Tiger.
Altman likened global data centers to electricity. As electricity supply becomes more widespread, people find better uses for it. He hopes that data centers can do the same, ultimately making AI technology flow like electricity.
It is reported that OpenAI executives have urged tech companies and investors to expand global computing capabilities in dozens of meetings. The initial plan was to require the UAE to invest in building multiple chip manufacturing plants, each of which could cost up to $43 billion, which would reduce the manufacturing cost of chips for companies like TSMC, the world's largest chip manufacturer.
In addition, OpenAI stated in a statement that its focus is on building infrastructure in the United States, with the goal of ensuring that the United States continues to maintain its global leadership in innovation, drive national reindustrialization, and ensure the widespread benefits of AI.
Shortly after launching the financing plan, Altman also visited TSMC's headquarters in Taiwan. He told TSMC executives that to achieve his vision, it would take $7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor factories and additional data centers.
OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois stated that OpenAI has never considered projects worth tens of trillions of dollars. Although the total investment required to fully build AI infrastructure for everyone in the world may reach tens of trillions of dollars over several decades, the scale of the projects OpenAI is exploring is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
At the same time, Altman visited South Korea and Japan. In South Korea, Altman held talks with two chip manufacturers, Samsung and SK Hynix, but raised national security concerns due to the important role the UAE plays in developing technology that many believe is crucial to the economy and warfare.
In the spring of this year, OpenAI executives held meetings with Japanese officials in Tokyo. They developed a plan to use the power from retired nuclear power plants after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident to build data centers.
At one meeting, when OpenAI stated that it was seeking 5 gigawatts of power, approximately 1000 times the power consumption of a typical data center, a Japanese official laughed.
Later, in a meeting with German officials, OpenAI discussed the establishment of a data center in the North Sea, so that it could utilize the 7 gigawatts of power generated by offshore wind turbines. Ultimately, political pressure forced OpenAI to explore options in the United States.
According to sources, Altman introduced a study called "Infrastructure is Destiny" by OpenAI, which calls for the establishment of new data centers in the United States.
In addition, the construction cost of each data center is $100 billion—roughly 20 times the cost of today's most powerful data centers—and they will accommodate 2 million AI chips, consuming 5 gigawatts of power.
OpenAI officials told White House officials, including the Secretary of Commerce and the National Security Advisor, that AI data centers will be a catalyst for the reindustrialization of the United States, creating up to 500,000 jobs.
VC investments in AI startups have reached $64.1 billion so far this year, close to the peak in 2021, but the total global AI annual revenue is only in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
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