Inside OpenAI’s weird governance structure

“WHICH WOULDAIGPTAIAIAIAIAIAI you have more confidence in? Getting your from a non-profit, or a for-profit company that is entirely controlled by one human being?” asked Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, at a conference in Paris on November 10th. That was Mr Smith’s way of praising Open, the startup behind Chat, and knocking companies like Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s social-media giant. Events of the past week, which began on November 17th with Open’s board , Sam Altman, and ended four days later with his return to the startup he co-founded, have made the non-profit setups look rather less attractive. They have also thrown a spotlight on darlings’ unusual governance arrangements.Open is not the only firm in its industry with an odd structure. Anthropic, created by rebels from Open, and Inflection (whose co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, is a board member of parent company) were formed as public-benefit corporations, which balance investor returns with social good. Anthropic also has a “long-term benefit trust” with power to elect new directors to a gradually expanding board. Even so, Open is an outlier.