OpenAI's median salary of engineers is $900k. So yeah AI companies need money to be successful. Now if there is any way to generate billions of dollars per year long term without any profit objective, I will be happy to know.

"Can't" is a strong word, but a company that does will have more resources and likely outcompete it.

By market standards. There will be no end to intended and unintended equivocation about this over the coming days.