8 ms·

I'm a simple guy and I don't understand the "sales and marketing" cost. I don't like these products. I have several negative opinions on them. To the extent

I'm a simple guy and I don't understand the "sales and marketing" cost. I don't like these products. I have several negative opinions on them. To the extent they work and there is a customer base what marketing could you /possibly/ be engaged in? Doesn't the product sort of market itself? Or another way is this a product that you can market to expand your MAUs? It's so polarizing I can't imagine how that $5.7B is being spent.

dylan604 3mo ago
It costs money to get influencers to set up kool-aid stands on their platforms.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
iaaan 3mo ago
I've seen physical billboards in the Portland, OR area for OpenAI, so I guess that accounts for at least part of it. Not really sure what kind of return they're getting on those but apparently they can just do whatever they want, even if they're losing money.
hedgehog 3mo ago
I didn't look at the financials but the subscription product is heavily discounted relative to the API pricing and that difference could well be booked as a marketing expense. They also have a string of grant and similar initiatives (like $50M each) that could be marketing. There's a lot of stuff they could assign at least partially to marketing, and it sounds like they spend money pretty freely.
tomlockwood 3mo ago
I've seen lots of ads saying I should use chatgpt to plan a workout or give me recipes. Thats apparently the killer app for 95% of the population at this point.
- henry2023 3mo ago
  Don’t forget changing the background of a picture. This alone can triple the GDP.
  - tomlockwood 3mo ago
    Practically printing money!!!
- Mehdi2277 3mo ago
  That aligns pretty well with a past job. Those two areas were very popular user interests. Third one was cosmetics like skincare routine.
- timacles 3mo ago
  The irony being that the majority of the American population doesn’t work out or cook
ralph84 3mo ago
They have a large and rapidly growing enterprise sales organization. If you want to sell to enterprises you need account executives, solutions engineers, forward deployed engineers, etc.
zerotolerance 3mo ago
I cannot consume any content anywhere without being slapped in the face with an unending stream of OpenAI ads and paid plugs. I'd guess most of that money is going directly to Google and Facebook.
sunsunsunsun 3mo ago
They need marketing because they have competition that essentially offers an identical product. Why should a consumer choose openai over anthropic or whatever else there is? The answer is not obvious.
- Gigachad 3mo ago
  OpenAI will make fully autonomous killing machines while Anthropic wont.
  - throwaway85825 3mo ago
    Land mines are my favorite fully autonomous killing machine. They've also been around for a while.
    - defrost 3mo ago
      The worst ones looked like brightly coloured children's toys. There's perhaps a metaphor or two lurking about bait and switch tactics.
parliament32 3mo ago
They are paying influencers to pretend they use LLMs, and discredit Chinese models: https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-palantir-is-paying-tiktok-influencers-to-fear-monger-about-china/ https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-p...
sensanaty 3mo ago
Half of the comments on this site at any given moment are from bots or shills shilling OpenAI and Anthropic. Now include Reddit, Twitter and everywhere else with a tech audience, paying for all that "organic" marketing doesn't come cheap.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  Wait, shit, really? How do I collect the money? Tweet at @Sama to collect, or...?
fuzzfactor 3mo ago
>It's so polarizing I can't imagine how that $5.7B is being spent. In every way imaginable and then more, looks like beyond the imagination :) >I don't like these products. I have several negative opinions on them. You're not alone, and the crowd seems to be building at the same time enthusiasts are proliferating too. So much widespread negativity I would guess that's about what it's expected to cost to fully overcome resistance and objections. Which must be bigger than we think, they sure have more information than us.

dylan604 3mo ago

It costs money to get influencers to set up kool-aid stands on their platforms.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

iaaan 3mo ago

I've seen physical billboards in the Portland, OR area for OpenAI, so I guess that accounts for at least part of it. Not really sure what kind of return they're getting on those but apparently they can just do whatever they want, even if they're losing money.

hedgehog 3mo ago

I didn't look at the financials but the subscription product is heavily discounted relative to the API pricing and that difference could well be booked as a marketing expense. They also have a string of grant and similar initiatives (like $50M each) that could be marketing. There's a lot of stuff they could assign at least partially to marketing, and it sounds like they spend money pretty freely.

tomlockwood 3mo ago

I've seen lots of ads saying I should use chatgpt to plan a workout or give me recipes. Thats apparently the killer app for 95% of the population at this point.

henry2023 3mo ago
Don’t forget changing the background of a picture. This alone can triple the GDP.
- tomlockwood 3mo ago
  Practically printing money!!!
Mehdi2277 3mo ago
That aligns pretty well with a past job. Those two areas were very popular user interests. Third one was cosmetics like skincare routine.
timacles 3mo ago
The irony being that the majority of the American population doesn’t work out or cook

ralph84 3mo ago

They have a large and rapidly growing enterprise sales organization. If you want to sell to enterprises you need account executives, solutions engineers, forward deployed engineers, etc.

zerotolerance 3mo ago

I cannot consume any content anywhere without being slapped in the face with an unending stream of OpenAI ads and paid plugs. I'd guess most of that money is going directly to Google and Facebook.

sunsunsunsun 3mo ago

They need marketing because they have competition that essentially offers an identical product. Why should a consumer choose openai over anthropic or whatever else there is? The answer is not obvious.

Gigachad 3mo ago
OpenAI will make fully autonomous killing machines while Anthropic wont.
- throwaway85825 3mo ago
  Land mines are my favorite fully autonomous killing machine. They've also been around for a while.
  - defrost 3mo ago
    The worst ones looked like brightly coloured children's toys. There's perhaps a metaphor or two lurking about bait and switch tactics.

parliament32 3mo ago

They are paying influencers to pretend they use LLMs, and discredit Chinese models: https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-palantir-is-paying-tiktok-influencers-to-fear-monger-about-china/ https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-p...

sensanaty 3mo ago

Half of the comments on this site at any given moment are from bots or shills shilling OpenAI and Anthropic. Now include Reddit, Twitter and everywhere else with a tech audience, paying for all that "organic" marketing doesn't come cheap.

fragmede 3mo ago
Wait, shit, really? How do I collect the money? Tweet at @Sama to collect, or...?

fuzzfactor 3mo ago

>It's so polarizing I can't imagine how that $5.7B is being spent. In every way imaginable and then more, looks like beyond the imagination :) >I don't like these products. I have several negative opinions on them. You're not alone, and the crowd seems to be building at the same time enthusiasts are proliferating too. So much widespread negativity I would guess that's about what it's expected to cost to fully overcome resistance and objections. Which must be bigger than we think, they sure have more information than us.