The Unit Economics Tell You Everything
OpenAI filed its confidential S-1 with the SEC on June 8, targeting a valuation north of $1 trillion. The headline numbers are staggering: $25 billion in annualized revenue, 900 million weekly ChatGPT users, and an $852 billion last-round private valuation. But the unit economics reveal a company sprinting toward an IPO before the fundamentals catch up.
Here's what matters: OpenAI is burning approximately $27 billion in 2026 while generating roughly $25 billion in revenue. That's not a typo. The company is losing more than it makes, and the gap is widening — projected cash burn hits $63 billion in 2027. Gross margins collapsed from 40% in 2024 to 33% in 2025, crushed by inference costs that ballooned from $8.4 billion to a projected $14.1 billion. The S-1 acknowledges what insiders already know: OpenAI won't be cash-flow positive until 2030.
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