The narrative that OpenAI could easily be a next Netscape/Yahoo/Myspace/RIM/Napster had been on the table since ChatGPT first broke into fame. Some could see that, and many refused to.

For whatever reason, the myth that being a "first mover" is critically advantageous seems to persist among technologists, even while our industry hosts so many examples of first movers exhausting themselves to clear the brush of exploratory research and market-finding only for some later entrant to confidently gallop through that now cleared path on horseback.