The Wall Street Journal has revealed the scale of OpenAI's internal wealth creation. In a secondary stock sale last October, OpenAI allowed employees to sell up to $30 million worth of shares each. More than 600 current and former employees participated, cashing out a total of $6.6 billion.
Insiders say about 75 people took the full $30 million. OpenAI originally capped the sale at $10 million per person, but investor demand was so strong the company tripled that limit in the fall.
Under OpenAI's rules, employees can sell shares after two years of service. That gave many who joined after ChatGPT's launch their first chance to cash out stock options. For perspective, OpenAI's shares have appreciated more than 100x over the past seven years. The top brass have done even better: president Greg Brockman confirmed in court testimony Monday that his current stake is worth around $30 billion.
In the old Silicon Valley, rank-and-file employees had to wait for an IPO to get rich. OpenAI, with its sky-high valuation and regular secondary sales, has turned hundreds of workers into millionaires years before any public offering.