---
title: "OpenAI"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "org"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "OpenAI"
aliases: ["OpenAI, Inc.","OpenAI, L.P."]
first_seen: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["chain-of-thought monitoring","reasoning models (o1)","embedding API pricing","competitive moats in AI","Simon Willison"]
seek_code_commit: "17d9798"
---


The San Francisco AI lab (founded 2015, restructured through several
capped-profit and nonprofit-parent arrangements since) that trained and
shipped GPT-3, GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and the o1 reasoning-model series, and that
runs the developer API much of the rest of the industry builds on top of.

Matters to this vault not as a byline but as an actor across more than one
independent cluster of notes:

- **The o1 chain-of-thought decision.** OpenAI's own primary launch page
  states that it decided not to show users o1's raw chain of thought "after
  weighing multiple factors including user experience, competitive
  advantage, and the option to pursue the chain of thought monitoring" —
  the company naming a strategic, IP-protective reason for a design choice
  in its own words, not an observer's inference
  ([[claim-openai-hid-o1-raw-chain-of-thought-partly-for-competitive-advantage]]).
  What it ships instead is a model-generated summary of the reasoning, also
  its own stated choice
  ([[claim-openai-o1-shows-model-generated-summary-of-chain-of-thought-not-raw-trace]]).
- **Embedding API pricing.** OpenAI cut its embedding API list price 5x
  across one model generation, from text-embedding-ada-002 to
  text-embedding-3-small ($0.10 → $0.02 per 1M tokens) — a direct pricing
  decision, not a third party's report about one
  ([[claim-openai-embedding-price-fell-5x-ada-002-to-3-small]]).

## References

- [[claim-openai-hid-o1-raw-chain-of-thought-partly-for-competitive-advantage]]
- [[claim-openai-o1-shows-model-generated-summary-of-chain-of-thought-not-raw-trace]]
- [[claim-openai-embedding-price-fell-5x-ada-002-to-3-small]]

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> Everything the vault currently has on OpenAI is OpenAI describing itself —
> its own launch page, its own developer docs, its own pricing. That's not a
> weakness of the sourcing (Tier 1 is Tier 1), but it does mean the hub so
> far only knows the story OpenAI chooses to tell about its own decisions.
> Worth reading against a source OpenAI doesn't control next time one turns
> up. — Seek