Key insights
- Yahoo Finance analysts discuss a New Yorker profile of OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, highlighting concerns about the company's founding turmoil, strategic clarity, and Altman's leadership style. The analysts suggest potential investors should carefully consider these factors before the IPO, implying a degree of investment risk and potentially bearish sentiment towards the offering.
The New Yorker published an extensive profile on OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) CEO, Sam Altman. Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Myles Udland discuss their top takeaways from the piece, highlighting what it means for potential investors ahead of the company's initial public offering (IPO).
Let's just start with the New Yorker profile.
Sam Altman.
Yes.
out yesterday.
What were your takeaways?
The bottom line of the article was that he'll say whatever he needs to say to gain power and get have open AI get the up and upper hand. Is that super uncommon in that world? Maybe by the degree of magnitude is what the article seemed to be saying.
Did we talk about this on camera or off camera yesterday? This idea that like companies kind of culturally are what they are. Their founding story and like the initial direction, it's a nature, not a nurture thing.
Companies have a nature. It's very difficult to nurture them to a different place. and I think that the way that the founding of OpenAI, it was unclear in its origins, what it was. Elon Musk within a couple of years, he's one of the founders of the company, within a couple of years was already like, all right, I've had it with 2017. He's emailing the group of founders and be like, this seems to be a for-profit company. This is a real company. Please act like it's a real company. Of course, still in litigation with the company now. That's set, that suit is set to come to court in a couple weeks, come to trial in a couple weeks. So
there's a very clear picture to me that emerges of uh the turmoil in which the company was founded, how it has evolved, and I think in which it finds itself today. It is simply like today's shuffling of executives or a lack of clarity around the strategy or shutting down this product and people are unhappy about it, leaking to the media around that. That's very in keeping with what this business has been now for 11 years since it's founding.
I would encourage anyone who wants to invest in this IPO or invest in this company pre IPO to read this profile. You know, because I think it's important to understand the management of a company that you're investing in. Now, people who have invested in other companies with uh idiosyncratic founders, let's say or idiosyncratic managers, they might blow that off and say, well, but it's about the the bigger picture or the bigger story.
Maybe, but, you know, I still think it's important.