OpenAI Shatters Records: Now Pays Workers More Than Any Tech Startup in History
Forget stock options and ping-pong tables—OpenAI just redefined tech compensation with paychecks that dwarf the entire startup ecosystem.
The New Gold Standard
The AI giant isn't just competing for talent; it's annihilating the old benchmarks. While other startups dangle future equity, OpenAI delivers real, eye-watering cash that makes Silicon Valley's usual packages look like internship stipends. It's a direct assault on the 'get rich later' startup ethos.
Funding the Arms Race
This isn't generosity—it's strategic warfare. Securing the world's top AI minds requires a financial moat too wide for rivals to cross. Every massive paycheck is an investment in maintaining an insurmountable lead, turning human capital into a proprietary asset more valuable than any algorithm.
The Ripple Effect
The entire tech labor market just felt a seismic shift. Compensation expectations are being rewritten in real-time, forcing every other firm—from established giants to hopeful unicorns—back to the drawing board. Talent acquisition just became a lot more expensive for everyone else.
OpenAI's move proves that in the scorching-hot AI arena, victory doesn't go to the best idea, but to the team that can afford to buy all the best ideas—and the brains behind them. A cynical but classic finance play: when you can't out-innovate, simply outspend.
Competing in the AI talent race
The company is giving out these large stock packages to hold onto its best researchers and engineers as it tries to stay ahead in the artificial intelligence competition. These equity payments are adding to the company’s already substantial operating losses and reducing the ownership stakes of current shareholders at a fast pace.
During this past summer, when competition between AI companies heated up, OpenAI and similar companies felt pressure to boost worker pay. This came after Meta Platforms head Mark Zuckerberg started making offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars to senior staff and researchers at competing firms. In some unusual situations, these packages reached $1 billion.
Zuckerberg’s hiring campaign brought more than 20 people over from OpenAI, including Shengjia Zhao, who helped create ChatGPT. Back in August, OpenAI responded by giving certain research and engineering team members a special one-time bonus. Some workers received payments worth millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier.
Soaring compensation costs through 2030
Financial information shared with investors during the summer months indicates that OpenAI’s stock-based pay was projected to grow by roughly $3 billion each year through 2030.
The company recently told its staff it WOULD stop requiring employees to stay at OpenAI for at least six months before their equity starts to vest. This policy change might push compensation costs even higher.
When looking at compensation as a share of revenue, OpenAI was expected to hit 46% in 2025. Among the 18 companies examined, only Rivian had a higher percentage, though that electric vehicle maker wasn’t bringing in revenue the year before going public.
Palantir’s stock-based pay equaled 33% of revenue before its 2020 public offering. Google’s stood at 15%, while Facebook’s was just 6%, the analysis found.
Meanwhile, SoftBank has completed its massive $40 billion investment in OpenAI as Cryptopolitan reported. The Japanese investment company made a final payment of approximately $22 billion, CNBC reported. Some sources suggest the last installment might have been closer to $22.5 billion.
SoftBank now owns more than 10% of the Sam Altman-led AI company. The final transfer happened last week, wrapping up a deal that started taking shape in early 2024. SoftBank first put $8 billion directly into the ChatGPT maker, then brought other investors together for an additional $10 billion.
For context, stock-based compensation averaged about 6% of revenue among the tech companies studied in the year before they went public, based on Equilar data.
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