Working Papers

2026

A genealogy of OpenAI’s business Model

Working paper · 2026

A genealogy of OpenAI’s business model

Luke Heemsbergen, Toija Cinque, Allan Jones

This paper shows the genealogy of accumulation at OpenAI. OpenAI’s incessant accumulation shifted through phases of social capital, hard infrastructure and soft cultural data, product pipelines, users who labour, and now, seemingly ever expanding aspects of social life.

Step-through diagram in white dots on black of five phases of capital accumulation: one social node; infrastructure and culture as the x and y axes; deferred profit as the z axis of time receding into the dark; labour of users as added beaded twirls; and a polyvalent fifth direction that can only be hinted at.

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Five-step animation of one node growing into a lattice of beaded strings.
Now Later
Figure 1. The five phases of accumulation drawn as added dimensions: a social node; infrastructure (x) and culture (y); profit deferred (z, time); the labour of users; and a polyvalent fifth direction that can only be hinted at. Click the steps, or drag to look around.