OpenAI Is Poised to Become the Most Valuable Startup Ever. Should It Be?

OpenAI is reportedly connected nan verge of a astir $500 cardinal valuation, a fig that would make it nan astir valuable private company successful nan world—bigger than SpaceX, TikTok’s genitor institution Bytedance, and moreover nationalist giants for illustration Palantir. It’s a staggering number for a institution pinch an “astronomical pain rate.” How is this moreover possible?

As Axios reports, location are really 2 deals successful play: a SoftBank-led information valuing nan institution astatine $300 billion, which won’t adjacent until year’s end, and a secondary waste of worker shares astatine a acold steeper $500 cardinal valuation. Most of nan cheaper shares person already been snapped up, leaving investors to conflict complete nan pricier ones.

One OpenAI investor—who said connected nan information of anonymity, citing an NDA—compared it to nan dawn of nan internet. “We're successful 1 of nan biggest exertion shifts [in history],” nan investor tells me. “The outcomes proceed to get bigger than group think.”

The investor argues that nan mathematics for investing astatine nan $500 cardinal valuation is straightforward: Hypothetically, if ChatGPT hits 2 cardinal users and monetizes astatine $5 per personification per month—“half nan complaint of things for illustration Google aliases Facebook”—that’s $120 cardinal successful yearly revenue.

“That unsocial would support a trillion-and-a-half-dollar company, which is simply a beautiful bully return, conscionable reasoning astir ChatGPT,” nan investor says. “It doesn't see each nan remainder of nan worldly they're moving on, each nan endeavor stuff, each nan agentic stuff, each of nan activity they’re doing connected hardware.”

Trillions of Dollars

The $5 fig is, admittedly, back-of-the-envelope math. Today, ChatGPT has 700 cardinal play progressive users—and fewer than 10 percent of them salary for it.(OpenAI declined to remark connected this figure.) The investor’s projections are ambitious, and they look to discount nan threat of awesome players for illustration Google aliases Meta eating OpenAI’s lunch. “The half-a-trillion-dollar mobility now is, to what grade will OpenAI beryllium capable to clasp nan customers it has acquired, and simultaneously beryllium capable to bring its costs to a constituent wherever it can, successful fact, monetize astatine [hypothetically] $5 per personification per month,” says Arun Sundararajan, a professor astatine New York University’s Stern School of Business.

The stake present is that OpenAI is nan adjacent Facebook aliases Google. For investors buying successful astatine $500 billion, “they’re expecting an IPO supra a trillion successful 2 to 3 years, different nan complaint of return does not warrant nan investment,” says Glenn Okun, who’s besides a business professor astatine NYU. That would mean leaping into nan apical 10 astir valuable nationalist companies successful nan world almost overnight. The investor says they person a longer clip sky than that, but “of people an IPO is nan astir sensible way fixed nan standard of nan company.” Though nan investor admits, yes, nan institution would request to beryllium weighted astatine much than $1 trillion to make nan finance worthwhile.

Stranger things person happened—particularly to OpenAI. In nan first 7 months of 2025, nan institution doubled its projected yearly gross to $12 billion, which suggests OpenAI is bringing successful astir $1 cardinal per month. Enterprise take has surged, too, reaching 5 million paying business users this month. Not to mention what potential advertizing revenue could do to its bottommost line. To nan investor, these are signs of a institution pinch nan momentum to win: “People don't for illustration unprecedented things, because astir group for illustration to pattern-match,” nan investor says. “Everything this institution has done has been unprecedented, from nan gait of its gross maturation to nan AI technology.”