"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."
"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."
"Remember this was a nonprofit, and I think Bill even said, 'Yeah, you're going to burn this billion dollars,'" Nadella said."
Microsoft made a $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019 and has invested more than $13 billion in the company overall. The initial $1 billion required board approval and was treated internally as a risky bet. Bill Gates expressed wariness about the early funding when OpenAI operated as a nonprofit and suggested the money could be burned. Microsoft proceeded because of a higher tolerance for risk and confidence in the importance of AI. OpenAI released an early ChatGPT demo in November 2022 that went viral, attracting one million users within five days and raising the company's public profile.
Read at Business Insider
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