{"id":310633,"date":"2026-02-22T00:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/310633\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T00:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:17:09","slug":"microsoft-ceo-says-bill-gates-opposed-his-openai-bet-youre-going-to-burn-this-billion-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/310633\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft CEO says Bill Gates opposed his OpenAI bet: ‘You\u2019re going to burn this billion dollars’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced pushback even from the company\u2019s cofounder and original CEO, Bill Gates, he recalled during an interview on tech-focused YouTube<\/a> channel TBPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember this was a nonprofit, and I think Bill [Gates] even said, \u2018Yeah, you\u2019re going to burn this billion dollars,\u2019\u201d Nadella said.<\/p>\n

Yet, Nadella and the Microsoft team weren\u2019t swayed by the pushback. While Nadella noted he needed to go through the proper channels and get board approval because of the size of the investment, he said that despite the risk, \u201cit was not that hard to convince anyone that this is an important area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of had a little bit of high risk tolerance, and we said, \u2018We want to go and give this a shot,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Microsoft viewed the partnership<\/a> and investment in OpenAI partly as a way to gain a foothold in AI and to help promote Azure\u2019s AI capabilities. However, Nadella said, no one could have predicted the groundwork laid by that first investment, which led Microsoft to eventually pour $13 billion into OpenAI<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn retrospect, who would have thought? I didn\u2019t put in a billion dollars saying, \u2018Oh yeah, this is going to be a hundred bagger,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Microsoft declined Fortune\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Microsoft started reaping the benefits of its investment in October as OpenAI restructured to give Microsoft a 27% stake in the company<\/a>, worth about $135 billion. Microsoft also relinquished its cloud exclusivity with OpenAI, but still struck a deal that would see OpenAI buy $250 billion worth of Azure services incrementally.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to January, and Microsoft reports that OpenAI lifted its net income to the tune of $7.6 billion<\/a>. OpenAI will reportedly pay 20% of its revenue through 2032 to its big tech backer under a reworked deal that also gives the AI company more flexibility on where it sources its compute (the foundational processing power behind AI), including from companies other than Microsoft, The Information reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite his initial hesitancy, Gates later found himself impressed by AI and its rapid development over just a few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an appearance on The Tonight Show last year, the Microsoft cofounder told host Jimmy Fallon that thanks to the rise of AI, eventually humans won\u2019t be needed for most things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be some things we reserve for ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in terms of making things and moving things and growing food, over time those will be basically solved problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Oct. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

More on AI:<\/p>\n

Anthropic was supposed to be a \u2018safe\u2019 alternative to OpenAI, but CEO Dario Amodei admits his company struggles to balance safety with profits<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands<\/a> at an AI summit weeks after OpenAI and Anthropic clashed in a tense Super Bowl ad war<\/p>\n

In the workforce, AI is having the opposite effect it was supposed to, UC Berkeley researchers warn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced pushback even from the company\u2019s cofounder and original CEO, Bill Gates, he recalled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,5873,106020,61,2397,60,1071,1682,40592,7689,145631,216,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-310633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-bill-gates","12":"tag-evergreen-refresh","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-investors","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-microsoft","17":"tag-openai","18":"tag-private-companies","19":"tag-sam-altman","20":"tag-startup-year-one","21":"tag-tech","22":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}