[stingraycharles]

I remember when there was a guy at Google years a few years ago that was convinced that they had an internal, sentient creature in their labs (I think maybe 4 years ago?)

If I’m not mistaken, after the media cycle, he lost his job for breaking confidentiality.

That was the opposite of marketing, Google really didn’t get how to turn this into a product until ChatGPT happened.

[jabwd]

They most likely understood that it wasn't viable for anything. OpenAI just yolo'd it and now we're dealing with the fallout. I'm fairly certain that any management layer at google isn't going to say yes to "invest 5 billion to make 10 million" scheme that OpenAI, Anthropic, are currently running.

[mistrial9]

"ChatGPT has over 900 million weekly active users worldwide. ... ChatGPT Plus has around 50 million paying subscribers"

[muwtyhg]

What you have typed does not address anything the person you are responding to said.

With those 50 million subscribers, how much do they pay and how much do they cost? That is the only relevant piece of information when discussing the investment and returns of OpenAI.

[mistrial9]

> "invest 5 billion to make 10 million"

business is contextual, and is a game of numbers? If you agree, then there is a difference between "I made money selling lemon drinks at my driveway, but I sold a car to make room" .. versus "I have recurring revenue of 50 million x $80 USD per month, and it is growing, and I am using cheap credit to build that" .. Numbers have a meaning, and the larger dollar recurring revenue cannot be matched in any way, no matter how much I spend. IIR ChatGPT is the fastest adopted software in the history of the Internet.

[JetSpiegel]

Is it growing?

Don't they report annualized revenue AKA the best month times 12? How is that comparable?

[jabwd]

They have no moat.

[gofreddygo]

I for one cant wait for the 10 million to go all the way to zero

[MadxX79]

Google is the leader, they really don't want AI to be a success, it only comes with a risk of disruption. They probably don't even really believe it's going to be that big of a deal. They are only in that game to hedge; sure they have wasted a trillion dollars if AI doesn't come through, but they will earn that back in 3-5 years. So why would they need to do deranged marketing stunts and sacrifice their credibility for that?

If OpenAI or Anthropic doesn't turn this into a trillion dollar industry FAST, they are cooked. The strategy of building up fear around your product is risky, but necessary. There is simply no way to grow the AI business fast enough if they can't talk directly to the CEOs and bypass input from the employees, and baba yaga stories are perfect for that. Every time the CEO hears an employee say that the AI isn't working great for him, he hears an employee that's scared for his job or for his life, dismisses it, and sends out a mandate that everyone needs to prompt an AI every time they as much as need to go to the toilet.