“the minimum to have health insurance”

Sam Altman is at the head of one of the most prominent companies in the development of AI in the world. Therefore, no one would be surprised if your salary had more figures than your telephone number. However, OpenAI is a somewhat peculiar company and the salary of its top manager is lower than what can be expected for a manager of that importance.

Some managers of large technology companies declare absurdly low salaries, such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, who receive a symbolic salary of 1 dollar, but their real remuneration comes in the form of a large annual bonus of millions of dollars or in packages of company shares. This is not the case with Sam Altman either.

A CEO “minimum salary”. According to the tax returns revealed by the United States Internal Revenue Service, to which it has had exclusive access Bloomberg y Business InsiderAltman received an annual salary of $76,001 in 2023.

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 had a 3.4% increase from the $73,546 per year he earned in the last year.

Altman among the lowest paid at OpenAI. According to the 2022 data, the rest of the company’s founders and technical directors, such as Chris Clark, (the former director) Ilya Sutskever, Rosemary Campbell or Gregory Brockman already recorded higher salaries, but they did not reach millionaire figures as one would expect. Their salaries ranged from $203,000 to $413,000 annually. With these salaries, it is not surprising that many choose to leave the company.

To put Sam Altman’s salary in context, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, the average salary in the San Francisco county where Sam Altman resides is $126,730 annually. The average annual salary for 2023 in the US is 66,621, according to data from the Social Security Administration.

Just 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 is designed to cover “the minimum necessary for health insurance.” Even one of the congressmen participating in the hearing joked about his salary, advising him that he should look for a lawyer to renegotiate his salary. Altman smiled and replied: “I’m doing this because I love it.”

Unlike other senior managers, Sam Altman does not own shares in OpenAI, despite being a key figure in its success due to the non-profit nature with which the company was founded. A cataloging that will change in the coming months, becoming a listed company with a purely lucrative purpose.

Waiting for a salary increase. With the change in the company’s classification, the board of directors will be able to receive packages of company shares and eliminate restrictions on benefits. According to ReutersOpenAI’s board of directors hopes to allocate a share package that would leave 7% of the company in the hands of Sam Altman.

Considering that OpenAI is valued above $150 billion, Altman’s salary at the head of the company will increase with several zeros to its right. Bloomberg He estimated this increase at about 10 billion dollars.

You don’t work at OpenAI for the salary. The salary that Sam Altman receives from OpenAI does not represent a headache for its CEO, who accumulates a personal fortune estimated at around $2 billion, derived largely from previous investments and ventures that sometimes generate conflicts of interest with OpenAI.

As published CNBConly the 12.2 million Reddit shares controlled by Sam Altman already have a valuation above 1.2 billion dollars, which has helped him Buy one of the most expensive mansions in San Francisco for which he paid 27 million of dollars. Altman retains his fortune despite having squandered more than $45 million on a study on universal basic income.

Testimony of OpenAI’s turbulent year. OpenAI’s 2023 tax return, to which some media have had access, not only sheds light on Altman’s salary, but also on a year marked by crucial events for the company. The most striking, the farce that the board of directors staged, forcing the temporary dismissal of Altman, to return victorious to collect the heads of those who banished him.

According to data from that 2023 tax return, OpenAI credited that Emmett Shear, who served as CEO during Altman’s brief absence, received $3,720 for a term of just 10 days, equivalent to $338 a day, including late December. week. Which is already a proportionally higher salary than Altman’s.

In WorldOfSoftware | The great bargain of the CEOs and their annual bonuses: if the company is doing well, they get paid and if it is doing poorly, they get paid too

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