OpenAI joins IPO parade

OpenAI said it filed confidentially for an IPO in a fast follow to Anthropic's filing.

In a statement, OpenAI said:

"We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best."

A few thoughts:

• The timing of this confidential filing is comical. First, OpenAI announced that confidential S-1 a few hours after Apple's WWDC keynote featured Google Gemini as supporting LLM.
• OpenAI's filing is keeping options open and giving Anthropic's potential IPO investors something to think about. See: My internal monologue reading Anthropic's big idea posts | Anthropic confidentially files for IPO
• The race between OpenAI and Anthropic to the public markets is about one reality: There's only so much capital to go around. Both AI giants are going to push $1 trillion or more in valuation initially and this week SpaceX goes public. See: SpaceX's IPO: Do you believe in space data centers, xAI's potential?

Separately, OpenAI launched a post that talks about the company's big plans. It's the type of post that could be used at the beginning of an S-1 filing. OpenAI said it had three main goals: Build an automated researcher, accelerate the economy and give everyone on Earth a personal artificial general intelligence.

OpenAI said it's entering its third phase of delivering personal AGI.

"Now we are entering the third phase. The economy is beginning to reshape around AI. The central question now is how to make advanced AI abundant, affordable, safe, useful, and easy enough for every person and organization to benefit from it. Frontier capability is only part of the job. The bigger task is turning that capability into tools people can actually use to thrive.

If we get this right, AI can become a foundation for greater productivity, creativity, scientific progress, and economic opportunity for the many, and we will achieve our mission: to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity."