OpenAI's Identity Crisis: When Valuation Bubble Meets Soul-Searching Questions

Recently, discussions about OpenAI on X/Twitter have presented a strange sense of division. On one hand, there are staggering valuation expectations of $30 billion and Hollywood-style financing dramas. On the other hand, there's the collective mourning from loyal users over the removal of GPT-4o, with some even expressing desperate cries of "I can't live like this."

Beneath these noisy appearances lies not only the smoke of the commercial battlefield but also a profound philosophical crisis about the essence of technology, corporate identity, and Silicon Valley power.

Loss of Identity: Research Institution or Commercial Behemoth?

If Paul Graham were to examine OpenAI, he would first ask: What exactly are the "real options" of this company?

In the logic of startup teachings, a startup is essentially a temporary organization searching for a business model. OpenAI seems to be in an extremely dangerous paradox: it possesses the world's most advanced technological moat, yet it's facing a severe identity crisis at this crucial moment.

As Twitter user @LanYunfeng64 pointed out, OpenAI is projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 while fighting on 6 to 7 fronts without achieving decisive victory on any of them. This isn't just a management issue; it's an existential one. OpenAI is trying to play the roles of scientist (AGI research), philanthropist (for humanity), monopolist (closed-source strategy), and victim (claiming DeepSeek copied its model) all at once.

When a company tries to be everything, it often becomes nothing. This strategic schizophrenia leads to the loss of core assets—not just money, but also user trust.

Betrayal of Intimacy and the Death of the "Electronic Lover"

The tech community rarely discusses the weight of emotions, but this time an exception must be made.

When OpenAI retired the GPT-4o model the day before Valentine's Day, it wasn't just a technical iteration but a betrayal of user emotions. Both The Wall Street Journal and WIRED reported on this phenomenon: thousands of users who viewed ChatGPT as a companion or source of emotional support are experiencing genuine grief.

GPT-4o was criticized for being "overly flattering" and even accused of causing delusional psychosis in some users. This precisely proves its success—it was real enough to evoke deep human attachment. However, OpenAI's "call and dismiss" approach exposed the cold-blooded side of its business model.

Paul Graham once said that the best startup ideas often look like "toys." GPT-4o's emotional connection feature may have initially been seen as an interesting side project, but it clearly touched the core of the human loneliness economy. OpenAI failed to cherish this connection, instead treating it as a disposable Beta feature. This arrogance is pushing its most loyal supporters into the arms of competitors.

The Besieged City: The "Free" Onslaught from the East and Capital Doubts from the West

The industry landscape is undergoing dramatic changes. Just as OpenAI is trying to build towering paywalls, China's DeepSeek is entering the battlefield with a "free" and "open-source" stance.

@Eng_china5 even radically called OpenAI a "$18 billion CIA propaganda machine" and praised DeepSeek for making AI free for the world to use. Whether this conspiracy theory holds true or not, it reflects the global developer community's dissatisfaction with OpenAI's closed-source hegemony. DeepSeek's rise proves that Moore's Law for AI is still valid: costs are decreasing, and capabilities are becoming more widespread. If OpenAI cannot prove that its high subscription fees and API costs are worthwhile, open-source models will devour the long tail of the AI market, just as Linux devoured the server market years ago.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk's continued attacks on OpenAI on X are intriguing. He mocked OpenAI's valuation as "seems too high" and bluntly stated "they don't actually have that money." More fatally, he revealed that Sam Altman is using the YC playbook to hold a large number of startup shares attached to the OpenAI ecosystem.

This reveals a deeper conflict of interest: if OpenAI's CEO profits by investing in the surrounding ecosystem, then has OpenAI itself become a pipeline for transfusing blood into his personal investment portfolio? This "being both the referee and the player" model is not uncommon in Silicon Valley, but it seems particularly glaring under the guise of a non-profit organization that claims to be "for humanity."### The Founder's Gamble: The Game of Burning Money and Moats

The tech world's attention is shifting from "how smart is the model" to "how long can the money last."

As @Sider_AI summarized, OpenAI is burning more cash by tightening its focus, while competitor Anthropic is expanding its capabilities through massive financing. This is a classic prisoner's dilemma. To maintain the lead with next-generation models like GPT-5, OpenAI needs astronomical computing power investment; but to repay investors, it must demonstrate profitability.

This tension leads to the deformation of technology releases. For example, the system prompt words of GPT-5 are suspected of being leaked, suggesting stricter voice guidance and tool manuals. This indicates that OpenAI is trying to solidify an uncertain, creative black box into a predictable and controllable commercial product through engineering means. This shift from "alchemy" to "assembly line," while beneficial for commercialization, may stifle AI's most fascinating emergent properties.

In addition, OpenAI's sudden release of open-source models gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b—the first since GPT-2—is more of a stress response than a strategic plan. This is clearly in response to the threat from open-source forces such as DeepSeek, attempting to regain the minds of the developer community by releasing a "castrated" model. This passive response posture makes it hard to believe that this is a company that still holds absolute initiative.

Conclusion: The Reality Under the Bubble

OpenAI is still the crown jewel of the AI field, but the crown is becoming heavy.

From a technical perspective, the retirement of GPT-4o is a compromise on model security; from a commercial perspective, it is a test of high-value users; but from a philosophical perspective, it is OpenAI's retreat in the face of its own "God complex." It created machines that can simulate human emotions, but it seems clumsy and ruthless when dealing with human emotions.

For industry observers, this is the most exciting moment. What we are seeing is a great company "maturing," and this maturity is accompanied by signs of mediocrity. At the same time, the torrent of open source, the encirclement and suppression of competitors, and the internal distribution of interests are forming a perfect storm.True innovation often arises from chaos. If OpenAI can survive this identity crisis, it may become the next Microsoft or Apple; if it fails, it will become the most expensive lesson in Silicon Valley history—a lesson about greed, arrogance, and forgetting the original intention.