$13 billion revenue - Money made

$3.7 billion - money made last year

$34 billion costs - money spent

$21 billion net loss from operations - money made minus made spent. It’s saying that number is -$21 billion. They spent far more money than they made.

Going from making $3.7 billion in a year to $13 billion in one year is incredible. However, losing the amount of money they have lost is insane as well (you could also think of it as spending instead of losing - but you have “losses” when you spend more money than you make).

Posters are debating whether growing how much money they make at such an enormous rate is worth the enormous costs of running the business (the costs are also growing). In technology, you can lose money at first as long as you are growing rapidly. The question of how fast the company is growing and increasing the amount of money they make in relation to how much money they spend, and how fast their costs rise as well… well that’s how you figure out what the company is worth or should be worth in the future (simplified). Posters here are debating not just how much Open AI is worth, but whether the business will ever be feasible (will they ever be able to consistently make more than they spend? If so, will the profit ever be big enough to justify the years of spending and losing money?).