Altman Responds to $13B Revenue vs. $1.4T Spending (founderboat.com)

On the BG2 podcast Sam Altman and Satya Nadella clarified the restructured OpenAI–Microsoft partnership: Microsoft has invested about $13.5B and holds a 27% fully diluted stake, while a new OpenAI Foundation is seeded with roughly $130B in stock (with the first $25B earmarked for health and AI security). Top-tier models (the “stateless APIs” like a future GPT-6) will be exclusive to Azure through 2030 under a revenue‑share deal, though open-source models and other products will be distributed elsewhere; both exclusivity and revenue sharing end early if an expert panel certifies AGI. Altman framed the nonprofit/PBC split as a way to balance mission-driven work with the capital needs of scaling. They pushed back on questions about OpenAI’s reported $1.4T compute commitment over five years vs ~$13B revenue, arguing revenues are growing steeply and the company can raise capital; Nadella emphasized that the real bottleneck is physical infrastructure—power and “warm shells” to house hardware—rather than chips. Both CEOs expect compute demand to keep exploding, driving new hardware form factors, more autonomous multi‑day agent workflows, and early scientific discoveries in 2026. They also warned that a 50‑state patchwork of AI rules (e.g., Colorado) would hurt smaller innovators and complicate compliance.