Sam Altman makes 'mic drop' offer to every Y Combinator startup

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/sam-altman-makes-mic-drop-offer-to-every-y-combinator-startup/

by evo_9 • 2 months ago

43 31 2 months ago

techcrunch.com

dude250711• 2 months ago

Adding more layers to circular investments.

bigbuppo• 2 months ago

Hey, it's the thing I said was going to happen. Thank's for taking my suggestion, Sam.

jonahbenton• 2 months ago

The desperation is strong in this one

moogly• 2 months ago

Sounds like they have an oversupply of these tokens.

sellmesoap• 2 months ago

It's only a token offer... I'll see myself out.

KHRZ• 2 months ago

If that's in API price, they may be better of with the subscription.

cyanydeez• 2 months ago

so weve officially reached the gambling sddiction portion of the LLM show. good luck FOMO

phendrenad2• 2 months ago

Maybe they can borrow a few OpenAI engineers too?

just_once2• 2 months ago

I thought code was free now

JacobAsmuth• 2 months ago

Good ideas are expensive. Which is why he's blanket investing, to catch the winners.

just_once2• 2 months ago

But why would they agree? Coding is free (or at least $200 a month)

shimman• 2 months ago

What a great way to boost usage before an IPO. Definitely not scammy behavior!

bravetraveler2• 2 months ago

The first taste is free, with a certain perspective on equity

altairprime• 2 months ago

Isn’t that a taxable gift, i.e. reportable income for the recipient, given the normal price charged for said tokens, though?

bravetraveler2• 2 months ago

I have no idea, just a BigCo engineer! Like someone getting hooked... taxes are a Later Problem. Anyway, the deal sounds less like a 'mic drop' and more like something else hitting the table.

Say 'Whizbang Model 6.8' comes out and tokens burn ~5x faster; what to do? Agree to give up less of the business or hope for proportional growth? The two million that had been agreed is no longer truly available/applicable. How this and the equity 'shake out' are probably relevant.

At risk of upsetting people, token value is arbitrary. What model, what time of day? What transaction? All to say: I have no idea what the Tax Man or our fake business would want :) Above my pay grade, thankfully!

HWR_14• 2 months ago

No, because it's an investment for equity

kotaKat• 2 months ago

It's just a little casual grooming for customers to prey on, is all.

red-iron-pine2• 2 months ago

the tokens are real electricity and capacity.

in ~3 years that equity may be worthless.

seattle_spring2• 2 months ago

i am excited to see what will happen with tokenmaxxing startups, both for how they work internally and the products they can build.

Am I the only one who gets a physical, visceral churning in their gut when they read/hear someone unironically using the term "tokenmaxxing"?

This is the absolute worst timeline, and I'm embarrassed to even be in an industry adjacent to these dorks.

dpoloncsak• 2 months ago

This is not in defense of tokenmaxxing, I just want to remind that CompSci has already been full of ridiculous names that we all just got used to.

Bogo sort, Canary, and Rubber-Ducking come to mind

Even BASH comes from 'Borne Again SHell', since they re-did what Stephen Bourne made, and it sounds like 'Born Again'

red-iron-pine2• 2 months ago

10 years ago i'd never had imagined i'd be using the word 'kubernetes' or 'kube' on the regular

at least tokenmaxxing has a straightforward implication, and the maxxing implies idiocy or excess

seattle_spring2• 2 months ago

Bogo sort, Canary, and Rubber-Ducking come to mind

None of those come from such a deep hell as the "looksmaxxing" community.

1123581321• 2 months ago

This sounds like how you get (or at least used to get) free AWS and Azure credits in your first x years as a startup or until you met revenue thresholds. You wouldn't get as many, but, you didn't have to give up a share of your company, to my knowledge.

Were there actually larger credit grants that would've been in exchange for equity, or, is OpenAI doing something novel?

mawadev• 2 months ago

Very odd shadow economy that is in the making here.

interstice2• 2 months ago

Like sci-fi with currency based in kwh or life minutes but this time it's tokens

dTal• 2 months ago

Reminder that "$2 million worth of OpenAI tokens" is meaningless and codes for "as much access to OpenAI infrastructure as Sam Altman feels like letting you have".

interstice2• 2 months ago

It could be at cost, but probably not

blitzar• 2 months ago

Is the "mic drop" in the headline refering to how bad a deal this is for any startup that takes it?

xg15• 2 months ago

Is the term "tokenmaxxing" now really used unironically and as a desirable thing?

dbbk• 2 months ago

No thanks

Rp8yXmdmr• 2 months ago

$2M in OpenAI tokens

How about real money or even Apple Gift cards?

Sam Altman makes 'mic drop' offer to every Y Combinator startup

Related Stories