Sam Altman Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI speaks during the Italian Tech Week 2024 at OGR Officine Grandi Riparazioni on September 25, 2024 in Turin, Italy.Unlike other high-paid tech executives, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he accepts a smaller paycheck to do work he loves.
Altman, a co-founder of the artificial intelligence company, didn't take any equity in OpenAI when it launched in late 2015, he said at the New York Times'last week. He was more focused on simply getting a front-row seat to the AI arms race, and now makes $76,000 per year as OpenAI's CEO, he said. "This is my childhood dream job," said Altman, 39. "Getting to work on and...getting to sit in the room with the smartest researchers in the world and go on this crazy adventure, like that is what I always wanted to do."with a for-profit arm, which Altman runs.
It's an unusual setup for a tech CEO. Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos still only takes a small base salary — the same amount,to receive a $56 billion salary package, the largest compensation plan for a public company executive in U.S. history, at Tesla.Altman's choice to eschew equity has previously spooked investors, who saw it as a sign that he didn't expect the organization to succeed, he said.