Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has mixed feelings about taking his company public.
“Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company? In some ways, I am, and in some ways I think it’d be really annoying,” Altman said on an episode of the “Big Technology Podcast” published Thursday.
Leadership seems to be one of the sticking points for Altman: “Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%.”
“It’s wonderful to be a private company,” Altman said, but he added that OpenAI needs lots of capital and is going to “cross all of the shareholder limits and stuff at some point.”
“I do think it’s cool that public markets get to participate in value creation,” Altman said.
Altman cofounded OpenAI alongside eleven others in 2015, and the company’s value has soared since the launch of its AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, in 2022.
ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users, and the company has inked $1 trillion worth of deals with tech giants like Oracle, Nvidia, and AMD.
In October, the company reached a $500 billion valuation after a secondary share sale, briefly overtaking Elon Musk’s SpaceX to become the most valuable private company in the world, a crown that SpaceX regained in recent days.
The Information reported on Wednesday that OpenAI is seeking to raise billions more at a $750 billion valuation.
There are signs the company is preparing for a potential IPO. In October, Reuters reported that OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026.
But asked during the podcast if OpenAI would IPO next year, Altman responded, “I don’t know.”
“We will be very late to go public,” Altman added.
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