OpenAI’s chief financial officer has addressed mounting speculation the ChatGPT-owner could go public at the Dublin Tech Summit, stating that while the company could go public following its recent corporate restructuring that no final decision has been made.
“Nobody tweet in this room that Sarah Friar just said anything about OpenAI ultimately going public. I did not. I said it could happen,” Friar said.
In December, OpenAI announced plans to convert its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC), a legal structure that seeks to balance profit-making with social responsibility. This positions the company for greater flexibility in attracting capital, while still allowing its nonprofit parent to retain majority control and prioritize the public good.
“A PBC gets us to an IPO-able event … if and when we want to,” Friar said.
The CFO pointed to two main conditions that would influence a future IPO: the internal maturity of the company and the condition of public markets.
“You can show up at the altar all ready to go, and if the market's not ready for you, yeah, you're just out of luck. Which is why you have to build a company that can be sustainable and safe regardless of where the public markets are, how open that window is,” she said.
“The market will put up with a certain degree of unpredictability, particularly when growth is high, but the market doesn't really love it.”