Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella remembers Bill Gates warned him on OpenAI: Giving $1 billion to them is like ...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that Bill Gates warned him against investing in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. During an interview with ‘TPBN’ – a tech-focused YouTube show, Nadella recalled that getting investment for the company wasn’t straightforward. Even at Microsoft, you kind of got to have to get a board approval to just go throw a billion dollars out there,” Nadella said, adding “Remember this was a nonprofit, and I think Bill even said, 'Yeah, you're going to burn this billion dollars’”.

“But I must say it was not that hard to convince anyone that this is an important area and it's going to be risky,” he continued. To recall, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019. Since then it has funded the AI company with over $13 billion.

“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,’” Nadella said during the interview. “We kind of had a little bit of high risk tolerance, and we said we want to go and give this a shot,” he reiterated.


In a related news, OpenAI has struck a major deal with software giant Microsoft to restructure itself into a public benefit corporation (PBC), a move that solidifies CEO Sam Altman's authority within the burgeoning AI industry and grants the $500 billion startup significant new latitude to grow. The agreement, announced Tuesday, October 29, untangles key limitations on capital-raising that have constrained OpenAI since its 2019 partnership with Microsoft. That initial deal granted Microsoft broad rights over OpenAI's work in exchange for the massive, costly cloud computing resources needed for its research. However, the unexpected, rapid explosion of the AI assistant ChatGPT three years ago strained those original terms, creating significant tension between the companies.

"OpenAI has completed its recapitalisation, simplifying its corporate structure," said Bret Taylor, board chair of the OpenAI Foundation, in a blog post. "The nonprofit remains in control of the for-profit, and now has a direct path to major resources before AGI arrives."