According to Business Insider, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a recent podcast that his excitement level for being a public company CEO is “0%,” calling the prospect “really annoying.” This comes as his company, which launched ChatGPT in 2022 to now reach 800 million weekly users, is reportedly seeking to raise billions at a staggering $750 billion valuation. OpenAI already hit a $500 billion valuation in a secondary sale in October, briefly becoming the world’s most valuable private company. The firm has inked deals worth $1 trillion with partners like Oracle, Nvidia, and AMD. Despite his personal reluctance, Reuters reported OpenAI is considering filing for an IPO as soon as the second half of 2026, though Altman himself said he doesn’t know if it will happen next year.
The Inevitable Tension
Here’s the thing: Altman‘s sentiment isn’t really that surprising for a founder of a company like OpenAI. Being a public CEO is a completely different job. You’re no longer answering just to a board and a few big investors; you’re suddenly accountable to thousands of shareholders and an army of analysts who demand quarterly growth and clear explanations for every hiccup. For a company trying to build artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a goal that’s famously hard to predict and monetize on a neat schedule—that sounds like a special kind of hell. And yet, he openly admits they’ll need to “cross all of the shareholder limits” eventually. The capital requirements for training next-gen AI models are astronomical. So you have this classic tension: the mission needs public-market money, but the process of getting it could seriously constrain how you pursue that mission.
The $750 Billion Question
Now, that reported $750 billion valuation is the elephant in the room. It’s absolutely mind-boggling for a private company. It puts OpenAI in the territory of the world’s two or three most valuable public companies. But how do you justify that to the public markets? You can’t just point to cool research or a popular free product. You need a rock-solid, massively scalable revenue model. ChatGPT’s enterprise deals and API business are huge, but are they *that* huge? The pressure to keep growing into that valuation would be immense from day one of an IPO. Every product delay, every safety debate, every competitive move from Google or Meta would be instantly reflected in the stock price. For a guy who seems to value flexibility and long-term thinking, that’s probably the “annoying” part he’s talking about.
A Reluctant Path Forward
So what happens? Basically, it seems like Altman is resigned to the IPO path as a necessary evil. He gave a nod to letting public markets “participate in value creation,” which is the right thing to say. But his heart clearly isn’t in the CEO part of the equation. This makes you wonder about the corporate structure. Could we see a dual-class share setup that lets founders retain control? Or maybe even a leadership change when the time comes? It’s possible. But look, OpenAI isn’t just any startup. Its governance is already famously complex, with a non-profit board overseeing a for-profit arm. Adding the SEC and public shareholders to that mix is a governance puzzle of epic proportions. One thing’s for sure: watching them navigate it will be one of the biggest business stories of the decade.
