Topic

OpenAI

A collection of 18 issues

The Misunderstood Utility of Search Ads

I have been increasingly noticing an overwhelming negative perception on search ads. Ben Thompson often mentions how search ads can feel like skimming the advertisers as Google collects rent on economic activity that would likely happen anyway. Notice this piece from 2022: “…oftentimes search ads feel like a rake on

The Ecosystem Advantage

Like “Spotify Wrapped”, ChatGPT yesterday let its users see their 2025 stats which was fun to go through. I almost exclusively use ChatGPT Pro model (with extended thinking) which makes it hard for me to casually chat with ChatGPT as it typically takes 10-20 minutes for each of my queries.

Sam Altman's Explanation

Jensen Huang in his recent Joe Rogan podcast had an interesting story from early years of Nvidia: “we convinced ourselves that chip is going to be great. And so I had to call some other gentleman. So I called TSMC…and I explained to them what we were doing. And

The "Edge AI" Bear Case

On “Invest Like The Best” podcast yesterday, Gavin Baker mentioned the following: “In three years, on a bigger phone, you’ll be able to run a pruned-down version of Gemini 5, Grok 4, or ChatGPT. And that’s free. This is clearly Apple’s strategy - we’re going to

Messaging Opportunity and Group Chat Dynamics

OpenAI has started piloting group chats for ChatGPT, initially in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan. It’s a simple idea with potentially big implications: bring multiple people and the model into the same conversation so the AI can search, summarize, draft, compare options, and keep a running context

The appeal of conversational commerce

First things first, let’s define “conversational commerce”. When you ask queries to an AI model or chat bot about something you want to buy, and based on the AI’s research you then take decisions and complete the purchase by ordering the product on the retailer’s website, that’

The Great Decoupling of Labor and Capital

A programming note: I initially wanted to cover Microsoft’s earnings today, but I am changing the schedule a bit as I felt more inspired to write today’s piece. Almost two decades ago, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was the first tech company to exceed $100 Billion annual revenue threshold in 2007.

ChatGPT's value capture problem

Consider a thought experiment. Imagine traveling back to February 2023, the moment OpenAI introduced the ChatGPT Plus subscription for $20 per month. At the time, ChatGPT felt revolutionary despite its profuse hallucinations. There was no deep research (which would be launched two years later); it couldn’t access real-time information

First impression of ChatGPT Agent, and apps on ChatGPT

OpenAI has been at the forefront of AI narrative these days to the extent it is difficult to keep track of their press releases and their implications. So, I first want to go back and discuss something that they launched almost three months ago: ChatGPT Agent. In their launch post,

OpenAI's admirable pace of iterations

I often see people admonishing Google for literally inventing the transformer architecture and yet not being able to productize it before OpenAI launched ChatGPT. We may not have to wonder about the hypothetical scenario where Google would be today if they were the ones who launched “ChatGPT” first. Exactly a