Is OpenAI Falling Behind? Sam Altman’s Surprising Warning to Employees Raises Big Questions 2025

A Snippet of AI Gossip A leaked memo that rattled the AI world

In a stunning and remarkably wide-ranging interview, the CEO of billion-dollar startup OpenAI, Sam Altman told TechCrunch that — at some point — he could see an “external” leader replacing him. Recognized in the past for his bold, forward-looking vision, Altman offered a very different posture this time, noting that OpenAI is suffering “rough vibes” and will continue to face “economic headwinds” that could threaten the company’s growth in the near term.

Altman’s blunt talk of strong competition, a sharp contrast to the PowerPointy babble usually spewed by Silicon Valley in public statements (and even more atypical for a former tech executive since it would seem odd for them to do anything but trash-talk their rivals). He acknowledged that Google has been “doing very well,” especially in the construction and pre-training of advanced AI models. The confession has also led to some suspicion that OpenAI’s long-time position as the dominant force in generative AI could finally be under threat.

Altman also warned that OpenAI’s revenue growth could slow dramatically in two years, collapsing to as little as 5–10% by the unthinkable date of 2026. “It’s not the hyper growth that OpenAI experienced after they released ChatGPT.” This is a reference to the company hinging on constant acceleration since releasing its superpopular language model, ChatGPT.

Make the Mission Central — Superintelligence Over All

Although Altman pointed out these difficulties, the memo served to motivate teams, not disenchant them. He implored them to keep their aims trained on the company’s long-term mission: building superintelligence. Even if competing companies succeed in shipping “great models” in the meantime, its long-term vision and research foundation are robust enough to withstand any storm that arises in the short term, he says.

“It is very hard to make the pieces fit together” as a research lab, infrastructure provider and product company in one, Altman acknowledged. “It’s painful but if we can pull it off, that will be game changing,” referring to its ability to attract talent by allowing them to contribute software beyond just papers. But he assured employees that “I wouldn’t trade places with any other company,” in confidence about OpenAI’s longer-term course.

In a call to research teams to “double down,” Altman wrote that now was the time for pushing harder, innovating faster and maintaining focus on what he says is this company’s mission. The memo reads like a caution and a call to arms — indicating that OpenAI is bracing for some rough and ready matches in the race to ensure smarter machines don’t end up cooking our collective goose.