OpenAI said ads were a "last resort." Then crossed $100M in 6 weeks.

Remember when Altman literally said in 2024 that ads are a last resort for them? Well. Here we are. What gets me isn’t the $100M itself - it’s that they hit it while the product is basically still in beta. Less than 20% of users see ads daily. No self-serve tools yet. No international rollout yet. 600 advertisers but most needed a $200K minimum just to get in. They haven’t even opened the floodgates and it’s already nine figures. The part I keep thinking about: Google built an empire on search intent - people typing what they want. ChatGPT has something different.