Want To Build Brain For The World: Sam Altman Tells Staff As OpenAI Reshapes Funding Structure

OpenAI announced a major update to its organisational structure on May 5, revealing that its for-profit arm will become a Public Benefit Corporation. Originally founded as a non-profit, OpenAI remains under the control of the parent entity.

However, moving forward, its for-profit arm, which has operated as an LLC since 2019, will transition into a PBC, the US artificial intelligence giant said in a blog post. This means that OpenAI is shifting from its “complex” capped-profit model to a standard capital structure with shared stock. 

“This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler,” CEO Sam Altman explained the development. According to OpenAI, the non-profit will retain control and become a significant shareholder in the PBC, enabling it to access greater resources.

“The non-profit will control and also be a large shareholder of the PBC, giving the non-profit better resources to support many benefits. Our mission remains the same, and the PBC will have the same mission,” the company said.

Altman also penned an open letter to its employees, highlighting that “OpenAI is not a normal company and never will be.” He emphasised that the firm has a broader mission of building “a brain for the world and making it super easy for people to use.

In its early days, there were concerns that AI should be controlled by a select few who could "handle it" responsibly, Altman said. “A lot of people could imagine an oracle that could tell scientists and presidents what to do, and although it could be incredibly dangerous, maybe those few people could be trusted with it,” he noted.

However, he outlined that OpenAI is committed to building democratic AI. “It will of course not be all used for good, but we trust humanity and think the good will outweigh the bad by orders of magnitude,” he added.

Acknowledging the rampant use of ChatGPT models for various purposes, Altman highlighted that the system has its limitations at the moment. “We currently cannot supply nearly as much AI as the world wants,” he said, adding that as a result, the company has decided to evolve its structure.

According to Altman, to make AI resources more accessible, the company may need an influx of “hundreds of billions of dollars and may eventually require trillions of dollars”. As a result, the company has organised its model on how it operates and raises money.