- OpenAI has now acquired the chat.com domain from HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah.
- The domain is not new and has been around since 1996, and will seemingly expire next year.
- While OpenAI didn't reveal the price of this acquisition, since Dharmesh bought it for $15.5 million for it himself, you get an idea.
Call it a strange or strategic move, but OpenAI has now acquired the chat.com domain name out of the blue. So, now, if you head over to the chat.com domain, it will redirect straight to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which sparks questions about this LLM’s future.
Folks over at TechCrunch reported the acquisition and also stated that an OpenAI representative confirmed it via email. Turns out, the chat.com domain is not new and has been out there floating on the internet since September 1996.
Then, it was updated last year when HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah acquired it for $15.5 million. However, the domain will apparently expire in September next year. A quick search on who.is shows the entire history of this GoDaddy-based domain.
While OpenAI didn’t reveal how much it has paid for the domain, Dharmesh took to X to give us an idea. He stated how he was paid in OpenAI shares and how, “When he does sell a domain, it’s almost never at a loss“. Well, given that it’s OpenAI and that Dharmesh states how he doesn’t sell domains usually, one can guess that it’s north of the amount he got it for.
On another page of this story, Sam Altman simply tweeted the domain name to imply the acquisition. Well, well, “talk about brevity.” But, why?
The simplest explanation behind OpenAI acquiring chat.com is probably the fact that it doesn’t want to misdirect its users or encourage knock-offs of any sort. Remember the recent JioHotstar incident? To avoid such mishaps, companies buy domain names that resemble their primary domain to avoid any future issues. Besides, you never know, ChatGPT could use the chat.com domain as a different product-based platform altogether, in the future.
When browsing through Reddit, I also came across this 8-year-old post by @clonz44 that revealed how heading over to ‘relentless.com’ redirects you to Amazon. And, guess what, Amazon still owns the domain. So, if a company has acquired a domain, they’re serious about it and are not going to let it go. Especially, since chat.com is a ‘GPT’ away from being the real thing.
I believe that such pricey acquisitions always have a bigger motive. While it may seem rather odd right now, you never know what it can lead to tomorrow. With that said, why do you think OpenAI has acquired chat.com? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below!
