CNBC reported on Thursday that shares of Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave and other AI companies fell. This followed word that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was roughly $50 billion at the end of September. Annualized revenue, or run rate, means recent sales projected over a full year. CNBC confirmed the figure, and the Financial Times reported it first. About $68 billion had been widely reported late last month. TechCrunch put that figure as approaching $70 billion.
A person familiar with the matter told CNBC the $68 billion included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners, allowing a closer comparison with Anthropic. TechCrunch, citing the FT, said investors built the higher figure to compare with Anthropic. TechCrunch added that Anthropic counts its cloud partners' sales and OpenAI does not. The accounts point the same way. CNBC's rests on one unnamed person. Neither outlet says how far the stocks fell or how much of the gap partner revenue explains.
Two run rates can differ because of what is counted, not only how much is sold. Counting partner sales gross adds to the total; leaving them out lowers it. Before comparing AI vendors, executives should ask which basis each figure uses. They should also ask what that basis means when judging how much risk a single vendor adds.