Google (GOOGL) committed up to $40 billion to Anthropic, which is closing the competitive gap as OpenAI delays its public listing. A $7 billion secondary share sale likely drove two senior OpenAI departures. Golden handcuffs tend to loosen once insiders can finally cash out.
OpenAI named Dali Rajic as replacement CRO the same day Dresser's exit broke, a deliberate move to preserve the IPO window. The most widely read finance newsletter on Substack isn't published by a bank, it's Doomberg, where 383,000+ readers get the energy and macro analysis the mainstream press misses. 24/7 Wall St. readers save 17% on their first year here. OpenAI is on pace to reach annualized revenue of more than $40 billion, roughly double its run rate at the end of last year, and two of its senior executives just announced they are leaving.
Those two facts are supposed to point in opposite directions. That they arrived in the same week is the story. The trigger was the August 13 report that Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser is departing after roughly eight months in the role.
She was the second senior executive to announce an exit in the same week, following a longtime OpenAI executive who had said earlier that week they were leaving to start something new. On CNBC that morning, anchor Brian Sullivan did not hide his read on the sequencing. "Two top executives leaving in a week.
Arguably the hottest company in the world, ahead of an IPO where people are going to get rich, does raise one, at least my eyebrows," Sullivan said, before adding, "When you have two top executives leaving a company at this, it's a critical time. Maybe the pressure is just insane inside the company." Written by Insiders. Before Doomberg published a word, its team spent long careers in heavy industry, private equity, and the hard sciences.
They take no advertisers and serve no institution — which is why their lateral-thinking coverage of energy, finance, and geopolitics reads nothing like consensus financial media. Doomberg has set aside a discounted rate exclusively for 24/7 Wall St. readers — it isn't available on their main page. There is a less dramatic reading that fits the calendar better.
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