FT just reported OpenAI’s annualised revenue is nearing $50B, about $20B below the $70B figure investors had circulated.

Anthropic and OpenAI count revenue differently, since Anthropic includes money from customers who buy its models through AWS and Google Cloud, while OpenAI leaves that money out.

To compare the 2 companies fairly, OpenAI’s investors added their own estimate of those cloud sales to OpenAI’s July figure, which turned roughly $30B into about $40B.

OpenAI then told investors its annualised revenue had grown more than 70% since July, and investors applied that growth to their adjusted $40B figure, which gave them about $70B.

OpenAI’s 70% growth was measured from its own July figure of about $30B, so the correct September number is just under $50B, and the extra $10B investors had added in July grew into a $20B overstatement.

Even at the lower figure, OpenAI’s annualised revenue still rose by about $20B between July and the end of September.