Artificial Intelligence · Profile from AI Research Companion
OpenAI
The San Francisco lab founded as a nonprofit in December 2015 to build artificial general intelligence "for the benefit of humanity". It became a capped-profit company funded by Microsoft in 2019, launched ChatGPT in November 2022 and so started the generative-AI boom, and in October 2025 became a public benefit corporation controlled by a renamed nonprofit foundation. It has the largest consumer AI product in the world (ChatGPT, ~900m weekly users and >50m paying subscribers by early 2026, company claims) and the largest compute commitments of any lab (~$1.4tn over ~8 years, Altman, November 2025). Revenue rose from ~$3.7bn (2024) to ~$13.1bn (2025, company figure cited at the March 2026 round), and the annualised run-rate was reported near ~$70bn by late September 2026 (Axios, reported). It raised $122bn at an $852bn post-money valuation (31 March 2026), filed confidentially for an IPO (June 2026) and was in early talks in autumn 2026 to raise at ~$1.4tn (reported). Its history is also a list of governance shocks: the five-day removal of Sam Altman (November 2023), the 2024 departures of its safety leaders, Elon Musk's lawsuit (2024–26), and the long fight over its conversion to a for-profit company.
At a glance
- Founded
- Announced 11 December 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman and others; ~$1bn of pledges announced (far less was paid in; see the founding move)
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California
- Ownership / structure
- OpenAI Foundation (nonprofit) controls OpenAI Group PBC, a Delaware public benefit corporation (since 28 October 2025). At recapitalisation the Foundation held ~26% and Microsoft ~27% on an as-converted diluted basis (reported); employees and investors (SoftBank, Thrive, Khosla, MGX, Nvidia, Amazon, a16z, others) hold the rest. Later rounds diluted all holders (stakes after March 2026 not disclosed, verify)
- Leadership (2026)
- Sam Altman (CEO); Greg Brockman (president); Sarah Friar (CFO, since June 2024); Brad Lightcap (COO); Fidji Simo (CEO of Applications, since 2025); Jakub Pachocki (chief scientist); Mark Chen (chief research officer); Bret Taylor (chair of the Foundation and Group boards)
- Products
- ChatGPT (Free, Go, Plus $20/month, Pro $200/month, Business/Team, Enterprise, Edu), with agents, search, memory, the Atlas browser (October 2025) and ads in the free tiers (from February 2026); the API and the GPT model families (GPT-4o, o-series reasoning models, GPT-5 from August 2025 and its 5.x updates); open-weight gpt-oss models (August 2025); Codex (coding agent); Sora (video; Sora 2 app, September 2025); image generation; a consumer device designed with Jony Ive's team (not before end-February 2027, company court filing)
- Scale
- Revenue ~$3.7bn (2024), ~$13.1bn (2025) (from investor disclosures and leaked statements, reported; the CFO's ">$20bn" for 2025 is an end-year annualised run-rate, not recognised revenue); ~$2bn a month (March 2026, company claim); run-rate >$40bn (August 2026) and nearing ~$70bn (late September 2026) (reported). ~800m weekly users (October 2025) and ~900m (February–March 2026) (company claims). Ads ~$1bn annualised run-rate (31 August 2026, company claim). Headcount ~3,000 in 2025 (reported, verify 2026 figure)
- Valuation
- $29bn (2023 tender, reported); ~$86bn (early 2024 tender, reported); $157bn ($6.6bn round, October 2024); $300bn ($40bn round, March 2025); ~$500bn (employee secondary, October 2025); $852bn post-money ($122bn, 31 March 2026); ~$1.4tn sought in early talks (October 2026, reported)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Nonprofit founding and the Musk split (2015–18); capped profit and Microsoft (2019–23); ChatGPT (2022); the board crisis (2023); the safety-team departures (2024); the Musk lawsuit (2024–26); Stargate and ~$1.4tn of compute commitments (2025); the PBC restructuring (2025); the io acquisition and the device bet (2025–27); the $852bn round, ads and the IPO path (2026)
10 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2015
Nonprofit Founding and the Musk Split
Founding
2019
Capped Profit and Microsoft Partnership
Restructuring / partnership / compute deal
2022
ChatGPT Launch
Launch
2023
Board Crisis and Altman Return
Governance crisis (removal and reinstatement of the CEO)
2024
Musk Lawsuit
Lawsuit (defence), with a related unsolicited takeover bid
2024
Safety Team Departures
Talent and safety controversy (team dissolution, departures, employment-terms reversal)
2025
PBC Restructuring
Restructuring (recapitalisation of the capped-profit into a public benefit corporation)
2025
Stargate and the Compute Commitments
Compute deal (joint venture plus a portfolio of multi-year capacity contracts)
2025
io Acquisition and the Device Bet
Acquisition (all-stock) and product bet
2026
852bn Round Ads and the IPO Path
Funding round / business-model change (advertising) / IPO preparation