Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Bill Gates told him his big bet on OpenAI would be a flop: 'Yeah, you're going to burn this billion dollars' | Fortune

""Remember this was a nonprofit, and I think Bill [Gates] even said, 'Yeah, you're going to burn this billion dollars,'" Nadella said."

""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 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."

OpenAI became the world's most valuable private company after restructuring that gave Microsoft a 27% stake valued at about $135 billion. Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 when OpenAI operated as a nonprofit. Bill Gates initially warned the investment might be lost, but Satya Nadella pursued the deal and secured board approval. Microsoft sought a foothold in AI and to promote Azure's AI capabilities. The initial investment led Microsoft to later invest roughly $13 billion. Microsoft relinquished cloud exclusivity while negotiating that OpenAI would buy about $250 billion worth of Azure services incrementally. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment.

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