Coreweave CEO Defends AI Circular Deals as ‘Working Together’

It’s been a great year for Coreweave. In March, the AI ​​cloud infrastructure provider went public in one of the largest and most anticipated IPOs of the year that didn’t live up to the hype.

Another setback came in October, when a planned takeover of the cloud provider’s business partner, Core Scientific, faltered due to shareholder doubts about the takeover target.

In the meantime, the company has acquired a number of different companies, its stock has risen and fallen, and it has been criticized and praised for its role in the booming AI data center market.

In an interview at Fortune’s AI Brainstorm Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday, Michael Enterter, co-founder and CEO of Coreweave, defended his company’s performance from critics, noting that it was in the midst of creating a “new business model” for how cloud computing is built and operated. Their collection of Nvidia GPUs is so valuable that they borrow against them to help finance their business. The executive seems to be implying the following: If you’re charting a new course, you’re bound to hit some bumps along the way.

“I think people are short-sighted a lot of times,” Intrator said, when asked about his company’s sometimes unstable stock prices. “Yes, it’s a swing,” he admitted, noting that Coreweave’s IPO took place shortly before President Trump’s tariffs went into effect — a remarkably uncertain moment for the economy as a whole.

“We ventured into one of the most challenging environments, around editorial day, and despite incredible headwinds, were able to launch a successful IPO,” said Brainstorm CEO Andrew Noska. He added: “I could not be prouder of what the company has accomplished.”

Coreweave stock may have debuted amid the economic downturn in March, but its price has been on the ride ever since. It debuted at $40, and over the past eight months, it has risen above $150, but currently sits at around $90. Its more cautious critics have compared it to a meme stock because of its tendency to go up and down.

Some of the uncertainty surrounding Coreweave stock is attributable to the company’s massive debt level. Not long after Coreweave announced a deal Monday to issue more debt to finance construction of its data center, its stock fell about 8 percent.

Intrator seems to view his company as a disruptor, and its unconventional tactics may take some getting used to. “When you introduce a new model, when you introduce a new way of doing business, when you disrupt what has been an established environment, it’s going to take some people some time,” he said during an appearance Tuesday.

Coreweave actually began its corporate life as a cryptocurrency mining company, but, in a short time, has built itself into a pivotal provider of “AI infrastructure” to some of the most important players in the technology industry. In this role, it provides GPUs to AI developers, and has forged major partnerships with Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta, and other tech giants.

Another topic that came up on Tuesday was the idea of ​​“mainstreaming” within the AI ​​industry. “Carousel” business deals, in which a small number of powerful AI companies invest in each other, have often been the subject of criticism, and have raised questions about the long-term economic stability of the industry. Perhaps not surprisingly, since Nvidia is one of its investors as well as its GPU supplier, Intrator has overcome such concerns. “Companies are trying to address the violent change in supply and demand,” he said. “You do it by working together.”
Since its IPO, Coreweave has continued efforts to expand its business. After acquiring Weights and Balances, an AI developer platform, in March, it acquired OpenPipe, a startup that helps companies create and deploy AI agents through reinforcement learning. In October, it also closed deals to acquire Marimo (creator of the open source notebook) and Monolith, another AI company. It also recently announced the expansion of its cloud partnership with OpenAI and said it has plans to move into the federal market, where it wants to provide cloud infrastructure to US government agencies and the defense industrial base.