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On October 20, 2026, on the BG2 podcast, investor Brad Gerstner, in front of Microsoft's CEO, questioned how OpenAI could have annual revenue of $13 billion while signing a $1.4 trillion computing power bill. Sam Altman responded that if anyone thought the risk was too great and wanted to sell their shares, he could immediately help find a buyer, and said he looked forward to the company going public so that the naysayers could short it. According to a summary in the same report, Altman's logic is that at this stage the real danger is not buying too much computing power and being unable to pay the bill, but stockpiling too little computing power and being unable to build the next-generation model, and he listed four supporting paths: ChatGPT subscription growth, building its own AI cloud service, developing its own AI consumer hardware, and fully automated scientific research. The report also noted that when Altman announced the AI cloud service, Microsoft's CEO was right beside him, and the competition between the two sides is already out in the open; filling the $1.4 trillion gap in four years remains an unproven and risky gamble. There are currently no subsequent developments.
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Altman Responds to the $1.4 Trillion Compute Bill: Better to Buy Too Much Than Too LittleDevelopments
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Oct 20
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Altman Responds to the $1.4 Trillion Compute Bill: Better to Buy Too Much Than Too Little
On the BG2 podcast, investor Brad Gerstner, in front of Microsoft's CEO, questioned how OpenAI could sign a $1.4 trillion compute bill on $13 billion in annual revenue. Sam Altman responded that if Gerstner thought the risk was too great and wanted to sell his shares, he could help find a buyer right away, and said he looked forward to the company going public so the naysayers could short it. The author sums up Altman's logic as: at this stage, the real danger is not buying too much compute and being unable to pay the bill, but stockpiling too little compute and being unable to build the next-generation model, and lists four supporting paths: ChatGPT subscription growth, building its own AI cloud service, developing its own AI consumer hardware, and fully automated scientific research; the author also points out that when Altman announced the AI cloud service, Microsoft's CEO was right beside him, the competition between the two sides is already out in the open, and closing a $1.4 trillion gap in four years remains an unproven gamble.