Adjusted for inflation?
From the article:
> The compensation figures have been adjusted into 2025 dollars to account for inflation.
OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
71–80 of 81 posts
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#72Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#73OpenAI doesn't offer traditional rsus (at least to regular employees?), but instead profit sharing units. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html Might change how you evaluate the value here.
Most private companies don't offer RSUs.
This is not true. Most fast-growing private tech companies with valuations a fraction of OpenAIs switch from ISOs to RSUs because exercise costs start to become prohibitive.
Of course they aren’t liquid yet, but they’re still RSUs, and it’s much more common than OpenAIs profit shares structure
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#74GPT-5.2 has radically changed my outlook on OpenAI. Head and shoulders above others. The excellence is there.
It hasn't done great in the head-to-head comparisons I've seen, and has trailed in several areas on the leaderboards (though not all).
Based on the 'code red' they declared, this model seems to have been rushed a bit.
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect so. They have no moat and are in a race to survive.
Employees also have no moat, and that is not unique to OAI. You either work as much as the other people on your team or you get replaced by one of the many people eager to work harder than you for that money.
This assumes a constant stream of an available workforce. Meanwhile, in the US where OpenAI is based, scrutiny and pressure from the current administration is making it harder to hire at their largest locations.
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#76“Paying” is a relative term here. Anyone that works for startups knows that it’s not really “compensation” until it’s cash in your bank account. Until then it’s just a theoretical number on paper, which tends to end up being worth a lot less than originally advertised/hoped. I’ve lost track of the number of times that someone’s startup got acquired for (insert what sounds like a big number) and everyone is like “wow…
this is a completely false and outdated take, you can easily sell openai shares
Citation needed. Please provide more information.
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#77Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#78Adjusted for inflation?
From the article: > The compensation figures have been adjusted into 2025 dollars to account for inflation.
I skimmed but missed that, thanks! I have seen so many times where comparisons are breathlessly made without adjustment in the media, so I’m pleasantly surprised it was done here.
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#79The codex github gatekeeper is the wrong hire for the job.
He's hurting progress
Re: OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
OpenAI has regular tender offers for their employees, so while this advice is reasonable in general it is less true for this case.
Less true isn’t the same as not true. Simply put we don’t know because it’s not what they are disclosing This article feels more like paid publicity than it does journalism
The various valuations you see for OpenAI are overwhelmingly based on the prices offered for shares in their employee tender offers so I’d say for OpenAI and SpaceX at a minimum (which has a similar setup for its employees) we have a pretty good idea of what employees are getting for their equity compensation if they so choose.