OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is using his olive oil inefficiently in an “offense to horticulture,” the Financial Times humorously reports.
For its “Lunch with the FT” series, the paper joined Altman in his kitchen. He prepared a garlicky pasta and salad, taking a rare break from his demanding job of advocating for the disruption of American copyright law.
Altman uses Graza olive oil, which comes in beautifully-branded squeeze bottles that are popular on social media (he is a millennial, after all). But Altman’s preference for over-priced, “trendy” oil is not the crime — the crime is that he appears to fundamentally misunderstand Graza’s schtick. The company sells distinctly-marked “sizzle” and “drizzle” varieties of its olive oil for sautéeing and finishing dishes, respectively.
To be fair, Spanish olive cultivation isn’t exactly common knowledge. But if you are so dedicated to the art of cooking that you stock two types of olive oil on your kitchen counter, you would probably know that one bottle is far pricier than the other because it’s meant to be used as a post-cooking “drizzle,” not a frying oil.
Altman used the “drizzle” finishing oil in his sautée pan, even though the “sizzle” oil was just inches away. It’s like taking fresh basil and cooking it down in a pan as though it’s spinach: it’s a waste of precious earthly material. At that rate, you might as well just throw some dollar bills in the pan… which is not not the playbook of Silicon Valley startups, incidentally.
OpenAI raised a record-setting $40 billion in a new funding round this year, yet it continues to bleed money, reportedly losing about $5 billion last year. It’s not clear how the company will turn a profit with such monumental costs. OpenAI was at one point losing money on its $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan.
Altman’s culinary faux pas probably can’t shed much light on OpenAI’s financials. But if you’re the kind of person who wastes pricey cooking oil, it could be that you’re burning VC money, too.
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Amanda Silberling
Senior Writer
Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
Send tips through Signal, an encrypted messaging app, to (929) 593-0227. For anything else, email amanda@techcrunch.com.
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