Not only do journalists do this all the time now, it’s even a thing within the companies themselves. I previously worked for a company that had been running for 10 years and had over 500 employees and close to $100MM in annual revenue. Every single meeting, one of the executives would use some form of “we’re still just a startup” as an excuse when asked tough questions.

This comes off as the writing of a teenager who’s just been caught and thinks they’re smarter than the adults who caught them. Which checks out because Sam Altman pretty much always acts like an entitled teenager despite being a grown-ass adult.

Just shut the hell up, and fight it out in court, like any competent lawyer will tell you.