OpenAI is showering its workforce with stock awards so rich that they are starting to rewrite the ground rules of Silicon Valley hiring. Investor materials show average stock-based grants of roughly $1.5 million per employee across a staff of about 4,000, a pay scale that has sparked fresh questions about retention, shareholder dilution, and what the AI talent war is doing to San Francisco’s tech economy.
According to The Wall Street Journal, investor documents reviewed this year show OpenAI’s stock-based compensation averaged about $1.5 million per employee in 2025, and the size of the grants outpaces pre-IPO packages at almost every major tech firm in recent memory. The Journal’s analysis, which used Equilar data adjusted for inflation, found that the equity awards are already contributing to heavy operating losses and rapid dilution for shareholders.
That spending is backed by enormous inflows of capital and brisk secondary share activity. As reported by Reuters, SoftBank and other investors moved tens of billions into the company this year, leaving OpenAI with new liquidity that helps fund aggressive hiring and retention moves.
Inside OpenAI’s Monster Pay Packages
In a separate report, The Wall Street Journal detailed how OpenAI has scrapped a six-month vesting cliff for new hires and handed out one-time retention bonuses to key researchers as it fights off rival poaching. The same investor slides reviewed by the company and the Journal project stock-based pay rising by roughly $3 billion a year through 2030 and estimate that equity awards could account for nearly half of revenue in 2025.
What It Means For San Francisco
OpenAI’s ability to spend at this level hinges on its revenue trajectory. Bloomberg reported the company expects revenue to more than triple to about $12.7 billion this year, giving management breathing room to backstop those large equity grants. On the ground in San Francisco, that kind of pay day concentrates wealth among a relatively small circle of engineers and researchers, a pattern that can supercharge demand for high-end housing and services even as other corners of the local economy contend with very different pressures.
Investor Calculus
Stock-based awards are not free money. Accounting rules require companies to measure and expense equity grants on the income statement, which widens GAAP losses and increases potential dilution over time. For a plain-English walk-through of how that works, see Carta. The central tradeoff is simple: pay now to lock in talent versus long-term dilution for investors as the race for AI talent heats up.
