Gerstner predicts a robust back half if OpenAI hits $100 billion exit revenue and IPOs this year.
“If that revenue is on track, right, if they're headed to a $100,000,000,000 of exit revenue, you know, this year and and and have an IPO in the back half, I think you could see a really robust, you know, back half of the year.”
Gerstner reports OpenAI added one billion dollars in API revenue in the last thirty days.
“OpenAI just announced last in the last few days that they've added $1,000,000,000 of API revenue in the last thirty days.”
Gerstner describes the market belief that AI tools can build CRM systems in an hour, threatening traditional software.
“I could tell it what I want, And I can literally have it build a customer relationship management system for my business in about an hour.”
Gerstner reports Altman disclosed OpenAI is doing more than $13 billion in revenue.
“Sam came on the podcast. He was a little bit feisty. And he said, listen. We're doing more than 13,000,000,000 in revenue.”
Gerstner notes Altman tweeted OpenAI will exit the year at $20 billion in revenue.
“And he just said in his tweet that they're gonna exit the year at $20,000,000,000 in revenue.”
Gerstner reports Altman expects OpenAI to exceed $100 billion in revenue in 2027 or 2028.
“What Sam said multiple times on the pod and since is that he expects that they'll do over 100,000,000,000 in revenues in twenty seven or '28.”
Gerstner argues that $100-200 billion in revenue by 2028-29 makes the capex spend responsible.
“Now if they're doing a 100 to 200,000,000,000 in revenue in 2829, then now we're in the zone of responsible.”
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“And if they're doing that and you spread the CapEx out, so we talked about 1,400,000,000,000, half of that's gonna be borne by their partners.”
Gerstner argues $100-200B annual capex is responsible if OpenAI hits $100-200B revenue in 2028-29.
“Now if they're doing a 100 to 200,000,000,000 in revenue in 2829, then now we're in the zone of responsible.”
Gerstner notes OpenAI's nonprofit is capitalized with $130 billion in stock, making it one of the world's largest.
“The nonprofit is already capitalized with a $130,000,000,000, a $130,000,000,000 of OpenAI stock. It's one of the largest in the world out of the gates. It could end up being much, much larger.”
Gerstner contrasts OpenAI's $13 billion revenue with its $1.4 trillion compute commitment over four to five years.
“OpenAI's revenues are still a reported $13,000,000,000 in 2025. And Sam, on your live stream this week, you talked about this massive commitment to compute, right? 1,400,000,000,000 over the next four or five years”
Gerstner calculates OpenAI could IPO at a trillion dollar valuation at 10x $100 billion revenue, below Facebook's IPO multiple.
“if you guys went public at 10 times 100,000,000,000 in revenue, right, which would be I think a lower multiple than Facebook went public at, a lower multiple than a lot of other big consumer companies went public at, That would put you at a trillion dollars.”
Gerstner says ChatGPT has over 1.5 billion monthly users and 800 million weekly users with rising engagement.
“I think chat GPT at one you know, well over a billion and a half monthly users, over 800,000,000 weekly users, and what most people don't talk about is the engagement. Engagement is going up.”
Gerstner says OpenAI and Anthropic deals are bigger than any tech IPO in five years.
“I was just looking at these. I think these are bigger private IPOs than any public IPO done in the last five years in the tech market.”
Gerstner argues OpenAI's global expansion mirrors Google's early 2000s strategy of competing worldwide without government permission.
“This is what Google did in the early two thousand. Right? And by the way, Google didn't have to go to Washington to get a permission or to get a license.”
Gerstner recounts Kevin Weil saying a trillion-dollar valuation would underwhelm him when joining OpenAI.
“I remember when you joined OpenAI and I asked you the question, can OpenAI get to a trillion dollars, right in total value?”
Gerstner characterizes OpenAI as shifting from regulatory advocacy to launching open source models.
“And now I think it's like more clear, the distinction that's being drawn. OpenAI is talking about launching an open source model here shortly,”
Gerstner states OpenAI is four times the size Google was at IPO in revenue and searches.
“OpenAI today is four times the size that Google was when it went public in terms of revenue, in terms of searches.”
Gerstner says OpenAI's $10B raise at $150B valuation is essentially public but excludes retail investors.
“You know, it's just nomenclature to not call that public. The problem with it is, the only people who get access to that are accredited investors, and retail investors are completely cut out.”
Gerstner reports OpenAI will exceed $11 billion in revenue this year per recent CNBC disclosure.
“OpenAI, you could see the pacing from the launch of their first consumer product relative to Google and Meta. Sarah just talked on CNBC last week, this year will be over $11,000,000,000”
Gerstner says OpenAI's voice API can call humans on the telephone and place orders
“Well, I mean, the Easter egg that I thought got dropped last week is they did this event on, you know, their voice API. Right?”
Gerstner says OpenAI will do $5B revenue this year, $10B next, twice Google's IPO revenue.
“Reports are that they'll do 5,000,000,000 ish of revenue or run rate revenue this year, maybe going to 10,000,000,000 next year.”
Gerstner says OpenAI has twice Google's IPO user count and trades at 15x forward revenue.
“average users, which we estimate is twice the amount Google had at the time of its And if you look at the multiple of the business, if you believe 10,000,000,000 next year it's about 15 times the forward revenue, which is about the multiple of Google and Meta at the time of their IPO.”
Gerstner calculates OpenAI's rumored $150 billion valuation represents 15 times forward revenue of roughly $10 billion.
“If that trajectory were to continue, right, that'd give you like roughly $10,000,000,000 next year. And the round's rumored to be at $150,000,000,000 so that's about 15 times forward revenue.”
Gerstner doubts ChatGPT and SearchGPT metrics will support reaching a billion users.
“I don't think we're seeing the metrics, you know, from ChatGPT and even SearchGPT that are going to lead to the breakout needed to get to that billion users.”
Gerstner reveals OpenAI has only 35% retention at twelve months, questioning the durability of its business model.
“But at twelve months, the retention even in OpenAI is like 35%. So I doubt that anyone that is looking at that even at 2,000,000,000 feels great about that as a durable business model.”
Gerstner estimates OpenAI's consumer business represents $2.1 billion of roughly $3-4 billion total revenue.
“It would imply that there are about 2.1 of the three four is the consumer business”
Gerstner suspects OpenAI's integration with Apple is deeper than publicly disclosed, creating unequal competition.
“I suspect that the integration going on with OpenAI is deeper than what we heard about yesterday. Right? So I don't know that this is going to be everybody playing equal.”
Gerstner reports data company lamenting OpenAI sets pricing umbrella with no margin floor for models.
“I was talking to a large data company this week who's in the business of serving models, they were lamenting the fact that the pricing umbrella was set by OpenAI and there is no price, right? So that it's a much lower margin business than the traditional software business.”
Gerstner views OpenAI's $85B valuation with capped upside as poor risk-reward given few companies exceed $100B durably.
“I can then plot a distribution of likely outcomes. How many companies have ever in the history of Silicon Valley been worth durably more than $100,000,000,000”
Gerstner says Google made a mistake letting OpenAI go first despite having the technology and capabilities.
“And to relinquish that spot by letting OpenAI go first, when you had the technology, you had the supercompute, you had the capabilities to release that product, I think was a mistake.”
Gerstner says OpenAI at $90 billion valuation may be overinflated like 2021 stocks, but AI remains profound.
“OpenAI at $90,000,000,000 may be ahead of itself just like we saw stocks get ahead of themselves in 2021, but it doesn't mean that AI itself is is not gonna be profound.”
Gerstner questions why OpenAI took a dilutive $10B round at roughly $30B valuation.
“what was their motivation to take such a dilutive round, know, the 10,000,000,000 at what was the valuation at 30?”
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