In a few hours I’m publishing a blog about OpenAI’s IPO ambitions where I analyze several factors.

Imagine a Trillion dollar IPO by a BigAI company in 2026 or 2027? It’s going to be so epic. OpenAI is so controversial and yet so fascinating with the rise of ChatGPT. It managed to convince Oracle and Softbank to take out so much debt to fund AI Infrastructure, it’s almost criminal.

OpenAI is a super fun company to blog about, because there are so many stray details and so much intrigue. When the likes of Casey Newton called it a “Generational company” back in 2024 I had to laugh. These are early days, and as unimaginable first mover lead of ChatGPT looked back then, unstoppable. But as we head into 2026 it doesn’t look at all the same way any longer.

OpenAI is a bit like the Tesla of AI, it faces so much competition. And its promises - let me say that it over-promises so much relative to the product it makes you wonder what happend to under-promising and over-delivering in this world of a previous more reliable generation of companies. 🤔 Apple’s cautions approach to capex in AI is starting to look like a good decision as capacity issues spiral out of control already for the hyperscalers.

OpenAI had to navigate huge legal issues with Microsoft and come out of it not unscathed giving away a major portion of their equity as they contemplate an IPO, most likely to be finalized in early 2027. You will notice OpenAI’s paid and developer users is a tiny fraction of their total “weekly” users. They are bleeding cash like Amazon in the early days.

They are going to compete with Apple in hardware, with Meta in apps and Ads, with Google in AI models and products, with Anthropic in Coding AI, with China in AI Infrastructure (China who knows a thing or two about infrastructure rollouts), with xAI, Meta and Google in chatbots - it’s like they are trying the impossible all at once. 😄