It’s never been this easy to build a $1 billion AI company

• You don’t have to be Sam Altman to build a $1 billion AI company. 
• Kai-Fu Lee’s new startup and Mistral AI have shown that AI companies can scale by going open source.
• The rise of open source has made it easier to achieve the kind of success OpenAI’s enjoyed.

The opportunity to build a $1 billion AI business has never seemed this straightforward for entrepreneurs aspiring to be the next Sam Altman.

As OpenAI boss, he’s succeeded thanks to billions of dollars of backing from Microsoft, while maintaining an allure around ChatGPT by keeping the stuff that makes it tick a secret.