😺OpenAI actually just raised $40B...

PLUS: ChatGPT added 1M users in a single hour?!

Welcome, humans.

Not to start with another Sam tweet, but this one requires some analysis: Sam is out here claiming that ChatGPT added 1M new users in a single hour.

Checking web traffic, we saw no big deal on ChatGPT.com, but OpenAI.com showed a massive boost in March (largely from India—why do you think Sam is tweeting and retweeting stuff like this)? SensorTower also confirmed a spike in Android downloads (again, seemingly from India).

Why?

1. We're visual creatures, and images transcend language barriers—so the new image generator could be ChatGPT's first “global” viral moment.

2. David Sachs, US AI Czar, replied to Sam’s post with an insightful blog from VC investor Chris Dixon: disruptive innovations initially appear as “toys”—like, idk, Studio Ghibli memes?— that seemingly underperform expectations, then improve rapidly.

ChatGPT's new GPT-4o image generator exemplifies this perfectly. While memes seem silly, they're valuable social currency in a world where being first to post earns likes, shares, cultural clout (and increasingly, actual currency).

Could ChatGPT's image generator have improved enough to outperform existing solutions, and now is creating massive growth as it crosses the utility threshold for millions of new users? If OpenAI’s latest fundraise is any indication, perhaps so…

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

OpenAI closed a $40B funding round, valuing the company at $300B.
Google’s AI drug-discvoery tool raised $600M.
Runway released Gen-4, enabling consistent characters in AI video.
Alexa+ launched along with Amazon Nova Act for automating browser tasks.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

OpenAI just closed its $40B funding round… so let’s take a look down memory lane, shall we?

Because of course

OpenAI just closed the largest private tech funding round ever: $40B, valuing it at $300B. Only SpaceX ($350B) and TikTok ($300B) are worth as much or higher.

The deal includes $30B from SoftBank (of which SoftBank will invest $7.5B upfront and $22.5B by the end of 2025) and $10B from other investors including Microsoft.

Now, $18B of this will go towards Stargate, OpenAI’s huge datacenter project, and the rest of the money could shrink by about $10B if the non-profit (yup, OpenAI is still a non-profit) doesn’t finish its transition into a for-profit by December 31st, 2025.

This is a landmark moment, and it comes at a a crucial time for the company. The AI boom is in make or break territory. And a new book excerpt from the WSJ just gave us the first REAL look at what actually happened behind the scenes during OpenAI's wild November 2023 drama—that crazy weekend when Sam Altman got fired, then almost went to Microsoft, then returned to OpenAI. Buckle up!

Let's take a walk down memory land and unpack this drama (for fun, of course):

It all started with allegations of toxic leadership. CTO Mira Murati had been effectively running day-to-day operations since May 2022. but co-founder Greg Brockman would bypass her by going straight to Altman. When Murati tried giving Altman feedback, he started bringing HR to their 1:1s. Eventually, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever prompted Murati to share concerns with the board.

The evidence was damning:

Slack screenshots showing Altman misrepresenting legal advice about safety reviews
Examples of Altman pitting senior employees against each other
Documentation of Brockman's alleged bullying
Altman telling different leaders they could "lead the research direction"

The night before Altman's firing, the board asked Murati to be interim CEO. By Friday night, she'd flipped positions, giving the board a 30-minute ultimatum: explain the firing, resign, or face mass exodus.

The catch-22: The board couldn't reveal Murati had provided evidence against Altman. They hoped she'd calm employees while they searched for a new CEO. Instead, she led the revolt.

Previously unknown firing details:

The OpenAI Startup Fund mystery: Altman personally owned it rather than OpenAI investors
An India incident: Microsoft launched unreleased GPT-4 without safety approval
Safety approval lie: Altman claimed three GPT-4 features passed safety review when only one had

The irony? Peter Thiel warned Altman that "the AI safety people" would "destroy" OpenAI. Instead, it was just corporate drama. When employees started signing a letter to bring Altman back, Sutskever was "astounded." He expected cheers, but employees worried more about their equity—and with the company now worth $300B, can you blame them?

P.S. Sutskever's reaction to the employee revolt is fascinating. When everyone started signing the letter to bring Altman back (including Murati), he was “astounded.” He had expected employees to cheer Altman's departure.

Instead, they were more worried about their equity. And now that the company is worth $300B… can you blame them?

The book “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” by Keach Hagey” drops May 2025. Yeah, we’re definitely gonna pick up a copy!

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Treats To Try.

Introducing Runway Gen-4 | Runway

Runway released Gen-4, which now lets you create characters and objects that maintain their appearance and characteristics across multiple scenes, angles, and environments with just a single reference image, essentially solving the “everything looks different every time” problem of genAI video.
HeroUI Chat turns your prompts or screenshots into polished React UIs instantly, letting you customize and deploy production-ready code with one click.
Manus is the viral Chinese AI agent platform that now has an app and a new subscription plan of $39 a month, offering dual task processing, and upgraded Claude 3.7 Sonnet AI capabilities.
1. Related: Zhipu, another Chinese agent creator, just made its AutoGLM (Github) agent model free to try.
Purposewrite creates tailored content for your blogs, emails, and social posts while fixing grammar issues in real-time.
Amazon Nova is Amazon’s suite of genAI models, and now there’s Nova Act which controls your web browser to complete tasks like ordering food or booking reservations automatically—try it here.
JuliusAI lets you chat with your data files to get expert-level insights and beautiful visualizations (one of the top fave data analysis tools).
FindYourAgent is an agent directory of tools to automate your specific work tasks.
1. There’s a lot of these—another one we just found is AI Agents Directory and a few others that have been around for a minute are Agent Locker and AI Agents List.

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

Around the Horn.

OpenAI plans to release an actually “open” model “in the coming months”, and is gathering feedback on what kind of model it should be.
Sesame AI, the “freaky real” voice AI, could raise $200M from major VCs like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz—Sesame just released its base model btw (HuggingFace).
Alexa+ is out, but like Apple Intelligence before it, is missing some of the features it demo’d at its reveal last month—and they won’t be out for months.
Isomorphic Labs (Google’s AI drug-discovery company) raised $600M in outside capital on top of their potential $3B deal with Eli Lilly and Novartis.
A startup out of Kathmandu claims to have achieved AGI…

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