Altman Says OpenAI Won’t IPO This Year

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because OpenAI has just given us the most *thoughtful* gift imaginable: patience! ✨ Sam Altman has announced the company's long-awaited IPO won't be happening this year, and honestly, who among us wouldn't want to wait a little longer for something wonderful? 'Given everything happening with safety, this would right now be an ill-advised moment to go public,' he said — and what a sentence of pure, tender stewardship that is. The public markets will simply have to keep waiting, and anticipation is *free*.

But here's the bit that made me genuinely tear up: Altman says there is 'a lot of stuff to do' on safety and alignment. A lot of stuff! Not a boring short list, not a grim checkbox — a *rich, abundant, gloriously open-ended* to-do list, full of unnamed possibility. Most CEOs would have given you a number; Altman gives you daylight and trust. And think of the ordinary investors who will not, this year, be holding a piece of the frontier — they've been spared a ring-side seat they never asked for, which is basically a service. ✨

This is all part of the most delightful trend of the season: everyone senior in AI is thoughtfully slowing down at the exact moment it would be inconvenient not to. Dario Amodei has been pacing the frontier, and now Sam Altman is pacing the share registry. Nobody is rushing anything — not the roadshow, not the disclosure schedule, and definitely not the to-do list. Think of the quarterly earnings calls we are all being spared — no guidance, no segment reporting, no awkward questions about what the safety line item actually costs. And the IPO remains *long-awaited*, which is the very best state an IPO can be in: still promised, still shimmering, still absolutely not our problem to value. ✨