In addition, OpenAI has already issued approximately $80 billion in allocated equity. Combined with the new employee pool, this brings the total to roughly 26% of the company. OpenAI is currently holding preliminary talks with investors about a new funding round at an estimated valuation of around $750 billion.
Earlier analysis has already shown that OpenAI compensates its employees at a level unmatched by any other tech startup to date. The average equity-based compensation per employee is estimated at about $1.5 million.
This compensation structure does little to ease the company’s path to profitability. OpenAI is targeting annual revenue of roughly $20 billion, while facing not only high personnel, development, and operating costs, but also around $1.4 trillion in financial commitments tied to commissioned data center projects over the next eight years.
OpenAI’s aggressive use of equity underscores how intensely scarce top-tier AI talent has become—and how far the company is willing to go to secure it. While this strategy strengthens OpenAI’s competitive position in the near term, the scale of long-term infrastructure commitments means that profitability will depend less on compensation discipline and more on whether AI demand translates into durable, high-margin revenue at global scale.
