Sam Altman is ‘embarrassed’ that OpenAI threatened to revoke equity if exiting employees wouldn’t sign an NDA

OpenAI is said to be giving laid-off employees a choice between keeping their equity and being able to sue the company. according to According to the document, if employees do not sign a non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreement, they “could lose all of their equity, possibly worth millions of dollars, earned during their time with the company.” in off-plane documents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed on Saturday evening that such a provision was in place, but said “we have never refunded anyone’s earned capital, and we won’t unless people sign a severance agreement (or agree to a non-disparagement agreement).

The spokesperson of OpenAI said this in his statement Vox, and Altman said the company “has been in the process of fixing the standard output documentation for the past month.” But as Vox report notes that at least one former OpenAI employee has spoken publicly about sacrificing capital by refusing to sign an NDA after leaving. Daniel Kokotajlo recently said in an online forum that the decision likely resulted in a capital loss of “at least 85 percent of my family’s net worth.”

In Altman’s response, the CEO apologized and said he was “embarrassed” after learning about the provision, which he previously claimed he was unaware of. “[T]where our previous exit documents contained a potential equity liquidation provision; Although we never returned anything, it should not have been in any of our documents or communications,” he wrote on X. “It’s on me, and I’ve been embarrassed a couple of times that’s obviously working; I didn’t know this was happening and I should have [sic].” In addition to admitting that the company changed its exit documents, Altman said, “[I]If any ex-employees who signed one of those old contracts are concerned about it, they can contact me and we’ll fix it.”

All this follows two more high-profile resignations from OpenAI this week. Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of OpenAI said he left the company and was soon followed by Jan Leike, who became a team leader at OpenAI. .