"Not a Normal Company"

There is a lot of swirl around OpenAI at the moment. I mean, there is always a lot of swirl around OpenAI, but the past couple weeks have been more like a tornado.

It started just over a week ago, when the company abruptly announced that they would no longer seek to invert their structure to become a for-profit entity with a non-profit arm, and instead the non-profit would stay in control while the for-profit arm shifted to a PBC. While they may have hoped this would get co-founder Elon Musk off of their backs – nope, he's doubling down, as his lawyer quickly noted the next day. This was followed by reports that Microsoft, OpenAI's largest backer and would-be shareholder, still had not signed off on any change in company structure. Business continued though, as OpenAI executed their largest acquisition to date: $3B for the AI coding tool Windsurf. At the same time, new reports surfaced that OpenAI was trying to get Microsoft to cut back on their go-forward revenue share. One day later, the company announced they were hiring Fidji Simo to take on a new role as CEO of the applications group of OpenAI. A couple days after this, new reporting had yet more details about the Microsoft/OpenAI negotiations, including Microsoft paring back their would-be equity potentially in exchange for access to OpenAI's tech after the previously reported 2030 cut-off date.¹ Meanwhile, yesterday came news that the Stargate Project, the key to OpenAI's computing future (certainly beyond Microsoft), is running into roadblocks when it comes to SoftBank trying to pull together funding.

Phew. What a week! And I'm certain I missed a few things in there too...