OpenAI is going to do a Trillion Dollar IPO
BigAI will come of age grown up in the womb in Generative AI's first mega initial public offering. Maybe 2026, but mostly likely in early 2027.
2026 will be a year of reckoning for Sam Altman, in more ways than one. He will be 41 in April, 2026.
OpenAI is likely to do a historic Trillion dollar IPO in 2026 or more likely, in 2027. Six days ago OpenAI confirmed their conversion to a public benefit corporation PBC structure. A mega IPO was always part of the plan for the cash pumped and margins starved chatbot pioneer. OpenAI made a $12 Billion loss last quarter. Impressive. It’s Sam Altman, against the world. It’s all reminiscent of a Gary Marcus or Ed Ziton rant. But I’m not sure I consider these people serious analysts on the business side of things.
To date, OpenAI have raised an astounding $57.9 billion and the cash injection of an IPO is just what they need to stay above water. According to a Bain Capital Ventures partner1, for years, OpenAI has communicated like the CIA - mysterious briefings, leaks on X, and a general vibe of “trust us, it’s complicated.” Their PR was flashy and exaggerated, but lacked substance, details and a coherent plan.
Recently about five days ago, for an hour, Sam Altman and Jakub Pachocki (Chief Scientist) went live and laid out dates, dollars, and doctrine. It was equal parts revelation and fever dream and was an amusing projection forward:
So four days ago: (I’m not a huge OpenAI YouTube watcher but this one is worth it)
Sam, Jakub, and Wojciech on the future of OpenAI with audience Q&A
In the video OpenAI explores a new “AI research intern” product that they hope will change the future. They claim that by Sep-26, they expect an “AI research intern” that meaningfully assists human scientists. By Mar-28, Sam Altman said it will be a “fully autonomous researcher.” Ambitious! And totally doubling down on their AGI marketing. But the infrastructure around OpenAI looks fairly dubious with some circular math. This AI Scientist plan reminds me of Tesla trying to spin the idea of Robotaxis as their salvation. That’s the problem with over-promising…
In this post I’m going to analyze some of the major issues and fun topics that jump out at me about OpenAI’s business future and its IPO. I’m both excited and afraid for them. Because when you crunch the numbers, it gets really entertaining if you are an AI nerd like me.
OpenAI is betting that consumer global adoption and AI Infrastructure can be a sufficient moat against competitors, but is that even going to be true? Scale itself might have been a moat in Peter Thiel early days but the AI economy has so much liquidity that no longer holds true.
OpenAI is going head-to-head with Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Anthropic and China, all at the same time. Sam Altman is a decent venture capitalist, but he’s not a CEO that you’d want in a company prepping for an IPO. While Nvidia has rock-solid margins, OpenAI’s entire business model sounds somewhat speculative in a world where their ARR growth is likely to deaccelerate in 2026 or 2027 and margins burn on the fringes. Or will it? Depends on what else OpenAI as up its sleeve.
I run a frequent AI chat where I ask the community (all of my readers using the Substack app) for their real opinions, insights and quick takes:
Will OpenAI’s ARR Deaccelerate as Competitors Ramp up in 2026?
According to The Information, in Q3 2025 OpenAI projected its 2028 revenue to be $100 billion.
The 2026-27 pivot is key and a successful IPO is crucial. OpenAI desperately needs an IPO and hopefully ASAP before they continue to lose more API and consumer market share.
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Maybe we need to see the future differently? 🤔
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Now let’s dig into some of the details.
OpenAI as AI Infrastructure Giant?
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