Sam Altman on why he has "0% excitement" to become a CEO of public company

Sam Altman

Sam Altman has admitted he has mixed feelings about OpenAI becoming a public company, even as its scale, valuation, and capital needs push it closer to that reality.

Speaking on the Big Technology Podcast, the OpenAI CEO said there are aspects of an IPO he finds appealing, but plenty he does not. “Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company? In some ways, I am, and in some ways I think it’d be really annoying,” Altman said.

One part he is unequivocal about is the job itself. “Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%,” he said, pointing to the added scrutiny and constraints that come with running a listed firm.

Altman described being private as “wonderful”, but acknowledged that OpenAI’s trajectory may make that status hard to maintain. The company requires enormous amounts of capital and, over time, will likely run into limits tied to private ownership structures. At the same time, he said there is something appealing about letting public market investors share in the upside. “I do think it’s cool that public markets get to participate in value creation,” he added.

Founded in 2015 by Altman and eleven others, OpenAI has grown into one of the most valuable companies in the world following the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. The chatbot now attracts around 800 million weekly users, and OpenAI has struck deals reportedly worth $1 trillion with partners including Oracle, Nvidia, and AMD to support its infrastructure and model development.

In October, OpenAI reached a $500 billion valuation through a secondary share sale, briefly overtaking SpaceX as the world’s most valuable private company. SpaceX has since reclaimed that title, but OpenAI’s valuation story is far from over. This week, The Information reported that the company is seeking to raise additional funding at a valuation of around $750 billion.

There are also growing signs that OpenAI is laying the groundwork for a future public listing. Reuters reported in October that the company is considering filing with securities regulators as early as the second half of 2026. When asked directly whether an IPO could happen next year, Altman was non-committal. “I don’t know,” he said, before adding that OpenAI would be “very late to go public”.