OpenAI's median total compensation package for a Software Engineer is $900k, just shy of a million dollars. The catch is that instead of traditional equity grants, OpenAI issues Profit Participation Units (PPUs).
OpenAI distinguishes itself from the majority of startups by providing PPUs to its employees instead of traditional stock options. To put it simply, while exercising options grants ownership to a portion of the company itself, PPUs represent ownership of a percentage of the company's *profits*.
The basis for PPUs are Profit Interest Units (PIUs), which you can think of as an entitlement to a percentage of the profits based on however many PIUs exist (similar to the total outstanding shares). As an example, if you own 1 PIU and there exist a total of 100 PIU’s, you are entitled to 1% of the profits of the company. OpenAI has also offered liquidity for the PPUs its issued to employees via tender offers such as the one earlier this year in January (though there is a 2-year lock up period).
We've published a blog post with the full scoop on OpenAI's offer structure, how it works, and its constraints: https://lnkd.in/gQX3GfwN
The below offer is a standard package for an L5 engineer at OpenAI. View more OpenAI compensation data points here: https://lnkd.in/gEfa7gCb
#offer #offerletter #compensation #salaries #salarytransparency #data