OpenAI is now the world’s most valuable private company, but when Microsoft originally invested $1 billion in the startup in 2019, it was less than a sure bet.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced pushback even from the company’s cofounder and original CEO, Bill Gates, he recalled during an interview on tech-focused YouTube channel TBPN.
“Remember this was a nonprofit, and I think Bill [Gates] even said, ‘Yeah, you’re going to burn this billion dollars,’” Nadella said.
Yet Nadella and the Microsoft team weren’t swayed by the pushback. While Nadella noted that he needed to go through the proper channels and get board approval because of the size of the investment, he said that despite the risk, “it was not that hard to convince anyone that this is an important area.”
“We kind of had a little bit of high risk tolerance, and we said, ‘We want to go and give this a shot,’” he added.
In 2019, Microsoft viewed the partnership and investment in OpenAI partly as a way to gain a foothold in AI and to help promote Azure’s AI capabilities. However, Nadella said, no one could have predicted the groundwork laid by that first investment, which led Microsoft to eventually pour $13 billion into OpenAI.
“In retrospect, who would have thought? I didn’t put in a billion dollars saying, ‘Oh yeah, this is going to be a hundred bagger,’” he said.
A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment.
Microsoft started reaping the benefits of its investment Tuesday as OpenAI restructured to give Microsoft a 27% stake in the company, worth about $135 billion. Microsoft also relinquished its cloud exclusivity with OpenAI, but still struck a deal that would see OpenAI buy $250 billion worth of Azure services incrementally.
Despite his initial hesitancy, Gates later found himself impressed by AI and its rapid development over just a few years.
In a February appearance on The Tonight Show, the Microsoft cofounder told host Jimmy Fallon that thanks to the rise of AI, eventually humans won’t be needed for most things.
“There will be some things we reserve for ourselves,” he said. “But in terms of making things and moving things and growing food, over time those will be basically solved problems.”