Zuhayeer Musa, the founder of the popular tech pay database and advisory Levels.fyi, whichOpenAI's pay, said there has been only one other company with a similar compensation structure to OpenAI: Argo AI, an autonomous driving company that shut down last year.
OpenAI's compensation is a simple salary-plus-equity model. Most employees are paid a flat base salary of about $300,000 alongside a yearly grant of around $500,000 in PPUs, or profit participation units, a form of equity compensation. And that's it. Musa noted there is some differentiation in pay for workers at OpenAI depending on experience, up or down several thousand dollars in salary or PPU grants, typically in increments of $25,000. Yet, most roles come close to the $300,000 salary and $500,000 grant split. Over the course of four years, the vesting period for the PPU grants, most OpenAI workers can expect to take home at least $2 million in equity pay alone.
"People have definitely been worried about the risk," Musa said. The potential upside, however, is a big pull. Although the price an employee can fetch for their grant is capped at 10x the granted value, that still means today's typical OpenAI worker could make up to $20 million on their PPUs. The company's valuation most recently jumped from $20 billion to $29 billion, and its valuation has.