Overview
- Internal data shared with investors show average stock-based compensation of about $1.5 million across roughly 4,000 employees, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis using Equilar data.
- OpenAI expects equity pay to increase by about $3 billion annually through 2030 based on investor documents.
- Stock-based compensation is projected to equal 46% of 2025 revenue, far above pre-IPO norms cited in the WSJ analysis.
- The company scrapped a six-month waiting period before equity vests and issued one-time August bonuses to select researchers and engineers.
- Meta’s offers reportedly lured more than 20 OpenAI staff, including ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao, intensifying the pay race that is inflating losses and diluting shareholders.