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The article talks about averages, but what I want know is the median. The usual situation, and I have zero reason to believe OpenAI is different, is that stock
by no_wizard 9mo ago
The article talks about averages, but what I want know is the median. The usual situation, and I have zero reason to believe OpenAI is different, is that stock options are top heavy leaning heavily toward executives.
I want to know rank and file salaries as opposed to stock options
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoIlllquid “stock options” in a private company is not what I consider compensation.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoThis is the general rule, but not for ones the size of OpenAI. There’s always a secondary market for prominent enough companies.
- soared 9mo agoDont all private companies require approval for secondary sales, which I assume are not ever approved?
- no_wizard 9mo agoTypically. I’d be shocked if OpenAI let employees sell their options like this without requiring approval
- htrp 9mo agoThey don't but you effectively do it under the table
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoDo they sell at full value?
- judahmeek 9mo agoHow do you define value without an IPO?
- matt-attack 9mo agoWhatever they sell them for is the value.
- cik 9mo agoThey do, but you sell forward contracts instead. This is perfectly legal, and the approach I've seen. There are a few companies, and even funds that will engage in this, in an effort to attain future upside.
- throw-12-16 9mo agoIts pretty common, Ive personally done this.
- Eridrus 9mo agoI am sure you can make OpenAI stock liquid pretty easily.
- LunaSea 9mo agoOnly if you're allowed to which is not always the case.
- Atotalnoob 9mo agoIt’s allowed pretty easily. They had had tender events (where you can sell your private stock super easily)
- mikeyouse 9mo agoThey've changed the laws recently which makes it far easier - I believe you'd still need to be accredited but for most of HN, that's a low bar. For OpenAI specifically, they've allowed employees to participate in the funding rounds and they did a separate tender offer with Softbank to provide liquidity to early employees as well; https://fortune.com/2024/12/17/hundreds-openai-employees-10-million-payday-softbank-stock-tender-offer-details/ https://fortune.com/2024/12/17/hundreds-openai-employees-10-...
- ls612 9mo agoOpenAI has regular tender offers for their employees, so while this advice is reasonable in general it is less true for this case.
- no_wizard 9mo agoLess true isn’t the same as not true. Simply put we don’t know because it’s not what they are disclosing This article feels more like paid publicity than it does journalism
- ls612 9mo agoThe various valuations you see for OpenAI are overwhelmingly based on the prices offered for shares in their employee tender offers so I’d say for OpenAI and SpaceX at a minimum (which has a similar setup for its employees) we have a pretty good idea of what employees are getting for their equity compensation if they so choose.
- belter 9mo agoDont worry...there is always an acquisition by Meta, on the horizon for any company with nowhere to go.
- eitally 9mo agoBusiness & back office employee salaries are standard but not impressive. Similarly, stock grants are better than most places but not wildly high unless you're in specific engineering & research functions. This is the same at Anthropic, too (I recently interviewed for director level business roles at both).
- lokar 9mo agoIn general, I wish the media would stop using just the average when the distribution is not normal.
- functionmouse 9mo agoThat's exactly why they use averages, though. Propaganda is insidious in that way.
- itsdrewmiller 9mo agoWho is “they”? I believe open AI would share averages for that reason but not that media would choose to cover it that way.
- lokar 9mo agoI think the simpler answer (and thus more likely) is that statistics education in the US is very bad (they should teach stats in high school, not calculus), and reporters just don't understand it. And the ones who do, believe (correctly) that their audience does not understand it.
- Garlef 9mo agoThe whole way media treats numbers is more than tiring: "X increased by Y" Sure... but: - What's the relative increase? - Is this increase out of the ordinary? Annually? Globally? But I don't think this is some sort of conspiracy. Rather: Most journalists are not very smart.