“minimum for having health insurance”
Sam Altman heads one of the most famous artificial intelligence companies in the world. Therefore, no one will be surprised if your salary contains more numbers than your phone number. However, OpenAI is a somewhat idiosyncratic company, and its top executive’s salary is lower than one would expect for a manager of such importance.
Some managers of large tech companies claim absurdly low salaries, such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, who receive a symbolic salary of $1, but their real reward comes in the form of large annual bonuses worth millions of dollars or in company packages. stock. Not so with Sam Altman.
“Minimum salary” of the general director. According to tax returns disclosed by the IRS to which it had exclusive access. Bloomberg And Business InsiderIn 2023, Altman earned an annual salary of $76,001.
For a highly skilled employee like Altman, this salary is really low, and according to OpenAI’s 2022 tax form, Sam Altman’s salary would have increased by 3.4% compared to the $73,546 per year he earned last year.
Altman among the lowest paid at OpenAI. As of 2022, the rest of the company’s founders and CTOs, such as Chris Clark, (former director) Ilya Sutskever, Rosemary Campbell or Gregory Brockman, have already recorded higher salaries, but they have not reached the millionaire figures as one might expect . . Their salaries ranged from $203,000 to $413,000 per year. With salaries like these, it’s no surprise that many decide to leave the company.
To put Sam Altman’s salary into context, the average salary in Sam Altman’s San Francisco County is $126,730 per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average annual salary for 2023 in the United States will be 66,621, according to the Social Security Administration.
Enough for health insurance. Altman himself acknowledged during a congressional hearing in May 2023 that his salary was very modest for a manager, noting that his compensation was designed to cover “the minimum required for health insurance.” Even one of the congressmen who participated in the hearing joked about his salary, advising him to get a lawyer to review his salary. Altman smiled and replied, “I do it because I enjoy it.”
Unlike other top executives, Sam Altman does not own shares of OpenAI, despite being a key figure in its success due to the non-profit nature with which the company was founded. Cataloging that will change in the coming months and become a listed company with a purely profitable purpose.
We are waiting for a salary increase. With the change in the company’s classification, the board of directors will be able to receive stakes in the company and remove restrictions on benefits. According to ReutersOpenAI’s board of directors hopes to spin off a stake that would leave 7% of the company in the hands of Sam Altman.
Given that OpenAI is valued at over $150 billion, Altman’s salary at the head of the company will increase with several zeros to the right. Bloomberg He estimated the increase at about $10 billion.
You don’t work at OpenAI for a salary. The salary Sam Altman receives from OpenAI is not a headache for its CEO, who has amassed a personal fortune estimated at about $2 billion, derived largely from previous investments and ventures that sometimes pose conflicts of interest with OpenAI.
How published CNBCJust the 12.2 million shares of Reddit controlled by Sam Altman already have a valuation above $1.2 billion, which helped him buy one of the most expensive mansions in San Francisco, for which he paid $27 million. Altman has maintained his wealth despite spending more than $45 million on research into universal basic income.
Evidence of OpenAI’s turbulent year. OpenAI’s 2023 tax return, which was accessed by some media outlets, sheds light not only on Altman’s salary, but also on a year marked by defining events for the company. The most amazing thing is the farce that the board of directors staged, forcing the temporarily fired Altman to return victorious to collect the heads of those who expelled him.
According to its 2023 tax filing, OpenAI noted that Emmett Shear, who served as CEO during Altman’s brief absence, received $3,720 in just 10 days, the equivalent of $338 per day, including a week in late December. This is already a proportionately higher salary than Altman.
In Hatak | The bargain of CEOs and their annual bonuses: if the company does well, they get paid, and if the company does poorly, they get paid too.
Image | Flickr (TechCrunch)