The day earlier than the launch of GPT-5, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stunned workers with a message within the firm’s Slack.
“As we talked about a couple of weeks in the past, now we have been comp for our technical groups given the motion out there,” wrote Altman, based on a replica of the message that was shared with me. He introduced that OpenAI would give a “particular one-time award” to researchers and software program engineers in a handful of orgs, together with utilized engineering, scaling, and security.
“We very a lot intend to maintain rising comp as we hold doing higher and higher as an organization,” he wrote. “However we wished to be clear about this one because it’s a brand new factor for us.” He then thanked workers for his or her “glorious work in direction of constructing AGI.”
The bonus quantity for every qualifying worker will range based mostly on position and seniority, based on my sources. The best payouts might be within the mid, single-digit hundreds of thousands for OpenAI’s most coveted researchers, all of whom already make hundreds of thousands per yr. Engineers, in the meantime, are anticipated to obtain bonuses price tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} on common. The bonuses might be paid out each quarter over the following two years, with the choice to obtain the cash in OpenAI inventory, money, or a mixture of each. Roughly 1,000 workers, or about one-third of OpenAI’s full-time workforce, qualify.
On the similar time, OpenAI is gearing as much as let extra workers money out hundreds of thousands of their vested inventory to traders. Altman has privately mentioned he expects they’ll have the ability to promote at a a lot increased share worth than the $274 worth awarded in OpenAI’s funding spherical earlier this yr, which valued the corporate at $300 billion. Bloomberg reported this week that OpenAI could also be valued at $500 billion within the upcoming tender provide.
A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to remark. The Data first reported the information that analysis and engineering workers have been getting a one-time bonus, however Altman’s memo is being reported right here for the primary time.
OpenAI has by no means provided such a payout to such a large swath of workers earlier than. The transfer highlights how fierce the talent wars for AI talent have become. Altman has misplaced a string of key researchers to Meta in latest weeks, the place one of many creators of ChatGPT, Shengjia Zhao, was simply named chief scientist. OpenAI’s chief analysis officer, Mark Chen, has internally in contrast Mark Zuckerberg’s poaching spree to a house invasion, whereas Altman has instructed workers that “missionaries will beat mercenaries.”
It’s not simply Zuckerberg that Altman has to cope with. My sources say that Elon Musk’s xAI has additionally been making aggressive presents to lure away OpenAI’s prime expertise. As well as, ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati lately poached a number of of the corporate’s technical leaders to assist begin her rival lab, Pondering Machines.
By not giving all of OpenAI the “particular” bonus, Altman dangers breeding jealousy amongst his workers who labored nonstop on this week’s launches and have been not noted. For now, although, everybody appears to be using excessive from the buzzy launch of GPT-5. After Thursday’s launch occasion, I’m instructed that Altman joined workers for a celebratory glad hour at Splash, a sprawling sports activities bar within the Chase Heart close to OpenAI’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco.