Every startup is "on verge of bankruptcy" by this metric.

You're only "on verge of bankruptcy" if you're in this situation and no one is willing to give you any money.

True and while one could hope that maybe this time (finally) the tech industry grift cycle burns out quickly I think the safer bet is dumb money will prop this hype mill up well past the point that the lack of real-world benefit becomes obvious. plus ça change...

Summary: OpenAI is planning a raise in the next 12 months, current burn rate is $5B, $2B revenue.

If they were on the verge of bankruptcy any number of tech giants would gobble them up immediately. Apple is essentially relying on them to make Siri actually usable in their next iOS for example. Google is scrambling to make their search product stand up against ChatGPT and the SearchGPT. Microsoft is in a strategic agreement with OpenAI from the last I've read on the subject.

OpenAI is quickly approaching that "Too big to fail" level, whether that's a good thing or not.

It's not possible to fully evaluate and judge the utility of LLMs at this time because the real, true costs are still largely unknown.

A less dramatic headline would be: OpenAI will be doing another fundraising round soon

But at what terms?

That will imo largely depend on the GPT-5 release. Have LLMs plateaued or is there another leap-jump?