SILICON VALLEY UNICORNS CAN NOW MULTIPLY WITHOUT SHOWING ANY ACTUAL PRODUCT
In “How To Make $32 Billion By Just Standing Near Sam Altman For A While,” Former OpenAI Executive’s New Startup Valued Higher Than The Economy Of Several Small Nations
BY CHAD MONEYBAGS, FINANCIAL HALLUCINATION CORRESPONDENT
SILICON VALLEY — In what financial experts are calling “completely f@#king normal economic behavior,” former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), has raised a casual $2 billion at a $32 billion valuation despite having produced nothing but vibes and PowerPoint slides with the word “superintelligence” on them.
INVESTORS LITERALLY THROWING MONEY AT ANYONE WHO CAN SPELL “AI”
Sutskever, who left OpenAI after reportedly becoming concerned that the company wasn’t taking safety seriously enough, has convinced investors including Greenoaks, Alphabet, and Nvidia to fork over billions based primarily on his reputation and some vague promises about “climbing different mountains” and “making sure safety stays ahead.”
“We’ve identified a proprietary approach to extract money from venture capitalists,” Sutskever didn’t actually say but might as well have. “Our revolutionary technology involves saying ‘superintelligence’ in a grave tone while pacing dramatically.”
Financial analyst Dr. Cash McBurnrate explained the investment strategy: “The real innovation here is SSI’s ability to turn PowerPoint slides into billions of dollars with 94.7% efficiency. It’s the most impressive money-to-nothing conversion rate we’ve seen since cryptocurrency.”
THE BUSINESS MODEL: “TRUST ME BRO”
Sources close to the funding round report that SSI’s entire pitch deck consisted of just three slides:
1. “I used to work at OpenAI”
2. “Superintelligence is coming”
3. “Give me money”
“It’s the most compelling pitch I’ve seen since we invested $500 million in that guy who said he could teach hamsters to code JavaScript,” said one venture capitalist who requested anonymity because they’re “kind of embarrassed about the whole thing.”
FORMER OPENAI EMPLOYEES REBEL AGAINST THE MONEY MACHINE
Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated story that we’re jamming together for comedic effect, twelve former OpenAI employees have filed a brief supporting Elon Musk’s lawsuit against their former employer, claiming the company’s shift from nonprofit to profit-seeking betrays its original mission.
“We’re shocked, SHOCKED to discover that a company in Silicon Valley might prioritize making money,” said Todor Markov, a former OpenAI employee who now works at Anthropic, another AI company that *checks notes* has raised billions in venture capital.
Markov described OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as “a person of low integrity” whose use of the nonprofit charter was merely a “smoke screen” to attract talent, which is certainly not at all what any of these other AI companies are doing right now with their safety manifestos and ethical guidelines.
INVESTORS RESPOND: “LOL, WHATEVER”
When asked if they were concerned about investing $2 billion in a company with no product, Greenoaks representative Warren Moneypiles said, “Product? Where we’re going, we don’t need products!” before diving into a swimming pool filled with liquidated pension funds.
Industry analyst Dr. Obvia Truth of the Institute for Stating the Goddamn Obvious pointed out: “At this valuation, SSI is worth more than Spotify, Lyft, and the entire GDP of Latvia combined. The difference is those other entities actually exist in physical reality.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR SSI?
According to sources, SSI plans to use the funding to hire more former OpenAI employees, rent extravagant office space, and continue not shipping any actual products for as long as humanly possible.
“We’re expecting a $100 billion valuation by 2026,” said one investor who wished to remain anonymous. “By then, we anticipate they’ll have advanced to having a logo and maybe even a working demo that does something vaguely impressive but not commercially viable.”
As of press time, fourteen other AI startups founded by former OpenAI janitors have raised a combined $17 billion, with one founder reportedly securing $3 billion after scribbling “LLM + blockchain + metaverse safety alignment” on a cocktail napkin.
“It’s not a bubble,” insisted venture capitalist Rich McRichface. “It’s a paradigm shift in how we value companies based on vibes instead of revenue or products. The old way was so 2019.”
