Alright, before I overwhelm you with my radical musings, let’s get this one thing straight.

OpenAI is not a publicly traded stock….yet. But you CAN smell the IPO fumes wafting through Silicon Valley.

Why, ya ask?

Because with all that talk about losing the not-for-profit model, and attrackting a crafty CMO, they seem to scream: “Let’s cash out on our little adventure while the hype train is still speeding”.

You know that these boys now belong to the unholy trinity of venture capitalists, billionaire tech bros, and liquidity-hungry, stock-horny employees that are foaming at the mouth for their payday.

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The hype machine rrrrrolls on

OpenAI has been riding on the generative AI wave so hard that it is practically surfing on the tears of laid-off designers, writers, and artists all together. If you believe the murmur in the halls of Silicon Valley, the valuation is already clocking in at a brain-numbing $157 billion, thanks to an October funding round that was about as subtle as Elon Musks’ ego.

That’s right…$157 billion.

To put that in perspective, this little text predictor annex mediocre coder/designer/poet could already be the 57th-largest company in the S&P 500 if it went public tomorrow. But the real value isn’t in what they’re selling. It is in the insatiable FOMO from investors who would mortgage their souls to get a slice of the pie. And since their home-territory is in the US, OpenAI’s financial trajectory is one giant middle finger to fiscal restraint.

So… count your monetary blessings all ya paupers.

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When greed meets delusion

So, what’s next?

Oh, you know the drill: IPO day arrives, champagne corks pop, and the market loses its collective shit, and analysts (the people who study studies) will toss out phrases like “game-changer” and “revolutionary” , while investors throw money at it like they are betting on a crypto moonshot.

If $157 billion is the current marker they are aiming for, you can bet your ass that uncle Sam A. is expecting to debut at something north of $200 billion.

Why?

Because the market thrives on delusions of grandeur, and AI is the main character of an overhyped reality.

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Same ol’ ol’

The $6.6 billion funding round in October had all the usual suspects at the table. Microsoft, Nvidia, Altimeter Capital. Oh, and let’s not forget Thrive Capital that was leading the charge because nobody can resist throwing cash at OpenAI like it’s the second coming of Steve Jobs.

Investors like Brad Gerstner (aka Captain Transparent Markets) have been pushing OpenAI to go public, and he was caught saying that there’s “a need for scrutiny and accountability”. Oh, sure, Bradley. Because “fair play” truly means milking the hype train dry as investors pile in, and the early backers make their clean getaway.

Transparency, my big unholy ass.

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Schlap a schticker on it

….and call it progress.

If OpenAI goes public, it will not be an IPO like all the other ones before it.

It will be a spectacle.

It will be a grotesque and greed-fueled feeding frenzy that only tech IPOs can deliver.

But will it solve any real problems?

Probably not.

Will it make a handful of people obscenely rich while the rest of us keep feeding the AI that eats our jobs? Yeah you can bet your ass.

So strap on kids, and take it like a man. The OpenAI IPO is going to be THE financial event of the year.

It is the perfect symbol of this era: profits over people, efficiency over ethics, and a whole lot of bullshit dressed up as innovation.

Signing off from the IPO circus,

Marco

P.S. Don’t forget to ask ChatGPT some free stock tips! Just kidding. Go buy a book, hug your dog, or do literally anything more productive than betting your savings on this AI carnival ride.

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Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ♨️

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