Welcome to the Dave vs. AI.

Every major AI company is hiding something…

OpenAI? Private.

Anthropic? Less private, but the point still stands.

And that’s not an accident.

All the major players building the next phase of human-level intelligence are operating in black boxes, with zero public accountability.

Why?

Traditionally, if you wanted hundreds of millions in funding, you had to go public.

Open the books.
Submit to regulation.
Deal with analysts.
Report quarterly earnings.

Not anymore.

Today, companies like OpenAI can raise billions in private capital, often from the same small group of tech giants and VC firms that stand to benefit the most.

Which raises a more important question:

“Why do they want to stay private?”

There Are Two Possible Reasons

Let’s play this out:

1. The AI might not be as powerful as they say.

If they go public, they’re forced to disclose real performance, real results, real usage.

And if the actual capability lags behind the hype?

That becomes a problem for valuation.

For recruiting.

For trust.

Staying private means the story stays tightly controlled.

2. They’re ahead, and don’t want to tip their hand.

If OpenAI, Anthropic, or another lab is far ahead of everyone else, going public means giving competitors a blueprint to catch up.

Being private means staying invisible.

You can race forward in silence.

You don’t have to tell anyone how close you are to AGI, or what’s happening inside the lab.

So What’s the Tradeoff?

Here’s where it gets messy.

Let’s say we do want them to go public to enforce more transparency and accountability.

But that introduces another massive problem:

Public companies have one primary responsibility: shareholder value.

And with AI? That means…

Shipping features faster
Capturing market share
Beating expectations
Prioritizing growth
Monetizing aggressively

Even if it compromises safety.

Because once you’re public, “slow down” isn’t in the playbook.

Wall Street doesn’t care about alignment. It cares about earnings.

So the choice becomes:

Black box with no oversight?

Or open books with misaligned incentives?

Neither is great.

We’re Building the Future With Zero Consensus

AGI is often described as the “last invention” humanity will need.

If that’s even halfway true, then how we build it, and who gets to influence that process becomes one of the most important questions of our time.

And right now?

There’s no framework.

No global agreement.

No public oversight.

No clear “right way” forward.

Just powerful tech, powerful people, and a very blurry finish line.

So What’s the Answer?

I don’t have one.

But I do know we’re going to have to rethink the binary choice between total secrecy and total capitalism.

If these companies stay private, we need stronger third-party accountability. Chris and I talked about this on the pod: California is taking steps, but maybe the feds need to invest and get a seat on the boards of these companies.

If they go public, we need new governance models that don’t tie AI safety to quarterly earnings.

Either way, someone needs to be watching.

Because the stakes here aren’t just profit or progress.

They’re everything.

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Every Major AI Company is Hiding Something From You...