OpenAI buying TBPN makes little sense, par for the course for a company that, like Twitter, stumbled into a big market and may never build a functional business
Stratechery Ben Thompson
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Discussion
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@benthompson
Ben Thompson
on x
@iankar_ An order of magnitude more people are paying subscribers than were live viewers I think I'll be fine
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@jon_stokes
Jon Stokes
on x
.@benthompson is right. It makes absolutely zero sense to pay in the nine figures for this particular media outlet. That totally insane & there is some other angle here that is either very clever or shockingly dumb/banal.
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@mediaevan
Evan DeSimone
on x
Everyone is overestimating how important this is. TBPN guys avoided the pitfall that trapped the Buzzfeed/Vice generation of digital media which is “when you have the new cool thing, sell at the top because coolness is fleeting.”
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@jon_stokes
Jon Stokes
on x
@TheFP The most rational read on this is also the most pessimistic, which is that narrative is extremely critical right now because narrative is driving the $$$$. This signal tells us that particular insider is pricing narrative absurdly high right now. Seems not great.
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@signulll
@signulll
on x
absolute *yikes*. ben calling openai “the short bus at the end of the rainbow” is absolutely incredible. i have talked to prolly like at least ten ppl i deeply respect about this openai move & it was almost universally touted as complete wtf. i've been trying to ponder around [im…
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@iankar_
Ian Kar
on x
Don't think anyone's ever gonna spending 100m on stratechery, sorry bro
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@eric_seufert
Eric Seufert
on x
It's easy / tempting to overthink OpenAI's acquisition of TBPN. But as a brand marketing campaign, it's not egregious. Oracle has a five-year, $500MM sponsorship deal with F1 racing. Adidas pays Real Madrid $158MM annually for sponsorship placement on its jerseys.
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@anshelsag
Anshel Sag
on x
.@benthompson makes a good point... I have heard some incredible stories about the amount of waste at OpenAI. But of course none of those things come due until performance doesn't match expectations.
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@_simonsmith
Simon Smith
on x
I share Ben Thompson's feelings here about TBPN. The acquisition was so nonsensical and poorly justified that it made me question OpenAI's leadership and hence my future commitment to being a customer. They should have just taken those hundreds of millions and given them to the
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@jaypatel
Jay
on x
@buccocapital @benthompson being anointed the category winner before the category has been defined can be a dangerous thing
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@curtismakes
Curtis
on x
@buccocapital @benthompson openai's biggest problem is that they keep acting like a company that's already won while shipping like a company that's still figuring it out
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@joshgans
Joshua Gans
on x
When you see something that doesn't make sense @benthompson think beyond the game. Why did OpenAI by TBPN? Surely the answer is: someone else made an offer first. https://stratechery.com/...
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@buccocapital
@buccocapital
on x
Well @benthompson woke up with some strong feelings about what is going on over at OpenAI [image]
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@reidjjackson
Reid Jackson
on x
Ben Thompson pulling absolutely zero punches on the OpenAI/TBPN deal this morning: [image]
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@dmnd.me
Jeremy Diamond
on bluesky
Okay, calling OpenAI “the short bus at the end of the rainbow” is incredibly funny even if it's a tiny bit problematic — stratechery.com/2026/openai- ... [image]