OpenAI’s history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders.
The company’s board is considering a decision that would change the company into a public benefit corporation, according to a source familiar with the discussions who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about them.
While OpenAI already has a for-profit division, where most of its staff works, it is controlled by a nonprofit board of directors whose mission is to help humanity. That would change if the company converts the core of its structure to a public benefit corporation, which is a type of corporate entity that is supposed to help society as well as turn a profit.
Open source products, back in the day, competed against the giant corporations of their time, which spent vast sums on R&D, and yet succeeded. That’s because massive organizations lack agility, suck at innovation and fail to inspire people with real talent. They might make a few prestige hires here and there, but who wants to work for Microsoft or for a greedhead VC tech bro, even if it means a big payday? And there are more ethical organizations around that are not controlled by Altman or other greedhead tech bros like Zuckerberg.