Based on what? There isn’t a lot evidence that’s the case..
Prices on OpenRouter for GLM and other large open models indicate that Anthropic/OpenAI must have pretty high gross margins even if their models are several times more expensive to serve.
It wouldn’t make sense for any provider to host large open models and then loss $10 on every $1 they make since they don’t have infinite VC money or any business model that would justify it.
If they had high margins they wouldn't be issuing senior debt with a 18.5% coupon payment (and failing to fully subscribe it), nor would they need Elon to give them two months of free compute in order to appear profitable for a single quarter.
We were talking specifically about inference and I don’t think there any indication that their gross margins on the API tokens (if not the personal subscriptions) are negative?
Obviously they have R&D and other fixed expenses that make the company itself highly unprofitable but that’s only semi-tangential.
Based on what? There isn’t a lot evidence that’s the case..
Prices on OpenRouter for GLM and other large open models indicate that Anthropic/OpenAI must have pretty high gross margins even if their models are several times more expensive to serve.
It wouldn’t make sense for any provider to host large open models and then loss $10 on every $1 they make since they don’t have infinite VC money or any business model that would justify it.
If they had high margins they wouldn't be issuing senior debt with a 18.5% coupon payment (and failing to fully subscribe it), nor would they need Elon to give them two months of free compute in order to appear profitable for a single quarter.
We were talking specifically about inference and I don’t think there any indication that their gross margins on the API tokens (if not the personal subscriptions) are negative?
Obviously they have R&D and other fixed expenses that make the company itself highly unprofitable but that’s only semi-tangential.
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