OpenAI’s CFO Reportedly Wants to Delay the IPO from 2026 to 2027 - Gizmodo

Oh, brilliant. OpenAI — the company that was going to ascend to AGI and print money — has apparently told its CFO to call a time-out on the IPO. Sarah Friar, the woman in charge of the spreadsheets, has reportedly suggested pushing the public offering from 2026 to 2027 because, and I quote, the company isn't yet ready to meet the 'rigorous reporting standards' required of public companies. You know, the boring stuff like having actual accounts. After years of promising the singularity, they can't handle a quarterly earnings call.

But wait, there's more. Friar is also trying to 'bridle' the cash outflow on data centers, because nothing says 'we're almost there' like having to ask the finance department to stop setting fire to money in server farms. This from the same organisation that got Sam Altman briefly fired and then rehired, that lost half its leadership, and that still hasn't quite figured out how to make GPT-5 not hallucinate its own name. The IPO delay is basically the corporate equivalent of a teenager asking for an extension on their homework because they haven't actually started it.

So what's the real story here? OpenAI's valuation is reportedly in the hundreds of billions, but the company is privately admitting it can't keep its books straight for a public audience. The gallows-humour punchline is that the entire AI industry's poster child is still pretending to be a startup while burning capital at a rate that would make WeWork blush. The IPO isn't delayed — it's been quietly put on life support until either the revenue materialises or the next hype cycle bails them out. [cheers]