Altman: OpenAI Will Build a "Forever Low-Profit" Company, Aiming to Compete with Stripe

Odaily Planet Daily News: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated at Stripe Sessions that OpenAI aims to become a "forever low-profit, but massive and fast-growing" infrastructure company, offering a product similar to an "intelligent meter" that allows anyone to purchase it to automate their business, develop products, or embed it into their own services. He compared OpenAI to Stripe, stating its model is usage-based pricing, and as the internet scales, both Stripe and its users will benefit.

Altman revealed that OpenAI has signed 20-year contracts for electricity and land to support this goal. He acknowledged that switching costs for AI are relatively low, citing the recent massive influx of users from competing coding tools into Codex as proof that the smarter AI becomes, the easier platform switching becomes. He pointed out that while some companies might try to swallow the entire industry chain, OpenAI does not intend to do so, believing that models and data centers are an integrated whole, upon which other companies can build products.

Altman also emphasized that companies should not overestimate AI's impact on existing business structures. Although AI changes many existing processes, good products will still survive in the market. He specifically mentioned that Shopify CEO Toby Lütke is the best AI adopter he has ever seen.