OpenAI offers a flat base salary of $300,000 with no bonuses and negotiations

Per Business Insider

OpenAI has a unique way of paying its employees. With around 500 workers, the company's salary computation relies on the salary-plus-equity model, with most employees paid $300,000 with a yearly grant of around $500,000 in a type of compensation called PPUs or profit-participating units.

This comes with no other bonuses, no other computations, and no other complexities. Zuhayeer Musa, Levels.fyi founder, took a look into how OpenAI paid its employees and commented on how unique it was.

Musa: "Other than them I can't think of any other prominent company adopting this model at this scale,"

Musa noted that regarding the PPU model, there have definitely been people worried about the risk, but it was noted that the potential upside was huge. Employee grants were capped at 10x of the grant value, this would still for up to $20 million in PPUs.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he didn't make much money from his position and had zero equity in the company.

Altman also noted that he doesn't want the company to go public to retain full control. This comes as OpenAI has become the most popular company not just in the AI space but in the tech space in general with the popularity of its ChatGPT chatbot.

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