Bloomberg Tech OpenAI Becomes World’s Largest Startup
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Oct 2, 2025 Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Tengler Investments, shares her insights on the private market valuations of transformative tech like OpenAI. She emphasizes the investment opportunities in AI, SpaceX, and robotics. Brian Kirschman, Portfolio Manager at GQG Partners, expresses skepticism about AI infrastructure spending and highlights monetization challenges faced by companies like OpenAI. Their discussion delves into the balancing act of innovation and investor expectations in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
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OpenAI's $500B Valuation Signals Optimism
- OpenAI hit a record $500B startup valuation via an employee share sale despite being unprofitable today.
- The valuation signals investor optimism that AI growth and future monetization will justify massive capital spending.
Global Capital Flooding Into AI
- The secondary included big institutional and sovereign buyers like SoftBank and Abu Dhabi MGX, showing global appetite for AI stakes.
- Shereen notes each closed investment tends to trigger even larger follow-on allocations into AI companies.
High Growth But High Costs
- OpenAI has rapidly growing revenue but remains unprofitable due to huge compute and data-center costs.
- The company scales user numbers (cited ~700M) while carrying capital-intensive expenses to train and run models.