They said it couldn't be done
ChatGPT
What they said
“ChatGPT is nothing more than long-form autocomplete. The specifics of approach are irrelevant.”
What actually happened
ARR / Users
$3.4B+ ARR, 300M+ weekly users
by December 2024
The Founder
The Numbers
Nov 2022
Jan 2023
Mar 2023
Nov 2023
Dec 2024
The Journey
November 2022
LaunchChatGPT launched as a free research preview; 1M users in 5 days.
January 2023
Milestone100M users in 2 months — fastest-growing consumer app in history.
March 2023
MilestoneGPT-4 launched; ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) goes live.
September 2023
Milestone$1.3B ARR reported; 100M+ weekly active users.
December 2024
Milestone200M+ weekly active users; revenue trajectory toward $12B+ ARR.
The Pattern
“Part skill. Part luck. All timing.”
Related products
File sync for people who don't want to set up a Linux server
~$2.5B revenue, 700M+ registered users, 18M paying users
IRC with a coat of paint — acquired for $27.7B
Acquired by Salesforce for $27.7B
Electric cars will never be mainstream — said every analyst until they were
$97.7B revenue, 1.81M vehicles delivered
Chat about ChatGPT loads when this section enters view.