In news that will surprise absolutely no one, Thinking Machines - the AI lab that Mira Murati started right after leaving OpenAI - is reportedly in talks to raise another billion dollars. The Information says Accel, an existing backer, is leading the $1 billion round at a valuation of at least $40 billion. That's a slight discount from the $50 billion the company was reportedly chasing last year. You know, just a casual 20% off.

The company's annual revenue run rate is over $100 million, according to a source who knows such things. At $40 billion, that's a revenue multiple that would make a dot-com bubble veteran blush. But who needs pesky things like profits when you've got a star-studded alumni list?

Thinking Machines didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, probably because they were busy counting zeros.

In July, the company introduced Inkling, an open-weight model that makes money by charging usage-based compute fees for adapting models on proprietary data via its Tinker platform. Because nothing says 'open' like charging for the privilege of using your data to train our model.

This new round follows a $2 billion seed round - one of the largest in history - that valued the company at $12 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led that one, with Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed, and Conviction Partners tagging along. Investors were clearly betting on the pedigree of Murati and her fellow OpenAI escapees.

But it's not all smooth sailing: several co-founders, including Lilian Weng and Luke Metz, have already jumped ship back to OpenAI. Apparently, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, even if it's the same pasture you left.