Hearing a lot about OpenAI paying tons of money for SWE. But when I looked into it, it’s a pretty standard pay other than somewhat large (and odd) equity packages. Not only is equity dependent on them maintaining a >100B valuation until some future liquidation event. But it’s not options or RSUs either, it’s some type of non-profit stock unit of which they can issue an arbitrary and unlimited amount. Counting that as TC seems misleading otherwise everyone’s startup compensation would be 900k TC (200k cash, 700k “equity”). Just seems far more risky than many people are making it out to be #equity #startup
You just described what a startup is. Of course it is risky. That's why people join start-ups. This is pretty standard to have base pay around $200Kish max for a high level IC.
Exactly. But to say your TC is 900k disingenuous. We all know that it’s paper money and doesn’t mean anything. 500k TC from Meta is meaningful because the 250k equity is in a public company
People who earned 400k at Meta, when meta was private are laughing at you right now. At a certain compensation level you don’t vote your salary at a yearly level, you view your salary at longer time frame and make decisions.
Yeah they're officially a "capped profit" corp so there are some funny mechanisms going on.
It’s basically the same as ISOs for any startup. Startup isos have any value because of the future revenue the company can generate. That’s the same thing that the PPU. It gives you a slice of future profits. The more future profits anticipated the higher the value of a PPU. The same as equity in any other private company
But one is based on the valuation of the company and the other is profits. E.g when Uber went public it wasn’t profitable but employees had RSUs which are tied to valuation
Valuation is also tied to profit. I wouldn’t value a company high at all if prospect of future profits was nothing. Uber was not profitable but they anticipated to be based on what they told investors, their plan, etc.
@lovesyou14 Sounds like it's not the same as stock or options at all. Red flag. They're promising a bonus at IPO or acquisition, and they're not even saying how much. Unless a stock issues dividends, it's not giving a slice of anything either. Stock value is based on how much people are willing to pay for it. How much do you think people will be willing to pay for your bullshit Performance Units?
Yes but *why* is there any value to a stock?? Because the company makes money. Same as a PPU, it’s a slice of the money a company will make.
It’s not structured the same, no, but there is value because of similar reasons.
Try and get an offer you will know the details. Many of these comments are just irrelevant speculations.
They have periodic liquidity events, so it’s actually pretty liquid unlike most startups.
My guess they are organized as LLC, that is why profit units.
OpenAI employee here. Base comp is very top of market. Equity is a private vehicle, but they can be sold at tender events (e.g. https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/28/openai-funding-valuation-chatgpt/). In that sense the odds of a liquidity event are much higher than an ISO at a standard venture company. I view tender events as certain enough that I'm planning major life events around these.
Where did you hear that the equity is dependent on a 100B valuation?
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What’s the non profit stock unit, and if they have a liquidation event, will it be treated differently?
it was not treated differently