Odaily Planet Daily News OpenAI had previously planned to transform into a for-profit organization, but ultimately decided that its nonprofit division would retain control of the for-profit organization. OpenAI's business unit, which has been affiliated with the nonprofit since 2019, will transform into a public benefit company (PBC). The nonprofit will control PBC and become its majority shareholder.
OpenAI Board Chairman Bret Taylor wrote in a statement on the company blog: OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit organization and is currently supervised and controlled by the nonprofit organization. In the future, it will continue to be supervised and controlled by the nonprofit organization.
OpenAI said it made this decision after listening to civic leaders and having constructive dialogues with the Delaware Attorney General's Office and the California Attorney General's Office. OpenAI was founded in 2015 and was originally a nonprofit organization, but transformed into a limited profit organization in 2019 and attempted to transform into a for-profit organization again. After transforming to limited profit, OpenAI retained its nonprofit division, which currently holds a controlling stake in OpenAI's corporate division.
OpenAI has said that the transformation is essential to raising the funds needed to grow its business, and will retain its status as a non-profit organization and inject more resources into it for charitable projects in areas such as health, education and science.
It is understood that in exchange for a controlling stake in OpenAI's companies, OpenAI will receive billions of dollars in benefits. At the same time, the risks faced by OpenAI are high. It needs to complete the profit-making transformation by the end of this year or next year, otherwise it will face the risk of giving up some of the funds raised in recent months. It is not clear what consequences OpenAI will face after changing direction. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a letter to employees on Monday, arguing that OpenAI may eventually need trillions of dollars to achieve the goal of making the company's services widely available to all mankind.