Is it a non-profit or for-profit? OpenAI's choice is not a relief

Sam Altman seems keen to have it both ways and that's a problem

- Parmy Olson

Sam Altman's reputation for spin was out in full force this week in a published 'letter to employees' saying that he was abandoning plans to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company. Instead, it will "continue to be overseen and controlled" by its non-profit board.

Hooray for humans, you might think, since that board has a unique fiduciary duty to all people, with a mission to "advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole." But his investors may be cheering the most, as OpenAI also appears to be removing its 100x cap on profits. In a Monday blog post, the company stated: "Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn't in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler."