When OpenAI Becomes CloseAI: The Space a Closed Ecosystem Leaves for Startups

When OpenAI Becomes CloseAI OpenAI is introducing the GPT Store to bring more independent developers into its ecosystem. In reality, however, it strips away a substantial layer of value from the thousands—or tens of thousands worldwide—of startups that have built businesses on OpenAI and GPT over the past year or several years. Sam does indeed want to build a very large ecosystem that, at present, appears somewhat closed. That leaves relatively little room for startups. With Sam’s aggressive approach to building the OpenAI ecosystem, will the company create every layer of the operating system itself? Or will it position itself more as an infrastructure provider and concentrate on model capabilities and safety? Developers in the OpenAI ecosystem would want its models to become stronger in safety and alignment. If other startups ultimately build the application layer, the assurances OpenAI can provide at the underlying level are much stronger than those startups can provide on top. External developers may therefore also hope that Ilya Sutskever stays to continue ensuring safety and alignment in the underlying AI. This is a question that concerns all AI entrepreneurs today. OpenAI’s capabilities are already so strong, and it is developing the agent framework, agent ecosystem, agent store, and perhaps a future agent operating system—everything. It has even begun working on hardware with Apple’s former chief designer Jony Ive. If OpenAI stacks all these layers itself, the space left for other startups keeps shrinking. But if OpenAI lets ecosystem entrepreneurs choose among different large AI models and focuses more on providing foundational capabilities, the space and activity available to startups at the application layer could be much greater. #科技早知道 --- Robin: ‘My personal impression is that, in pursuing technical breakthroughs and commercialization, OpenAI is moving further from its founding intentions. A company needs some counterbalancing forces in addition to the CEO’s direction, particularly when AI may have major implications for society and human safety. If OpenAI becomes a closed ecosystem and wants to do everything, it leaves even less room for the entrepreneurs within that ecosystem.’