OpenAI CFO Friar 告诉员工：公司将在 2027 年或更早上市

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar 周三在一次全员会议上告诉员工，这家人工智能实验室“将在 2027 年成为上市公司”；但如果“我们的业务继续呈现拐点式增长”，公司也可能更早在公开市场亮相。

据两位知情人士透露，Friar 对员工表示：“IPO 不是终点线，而是一个里程碑，是又一次融资。”由于未获授权公开发言，这两名人士要求匿名。“我们在 3 月融资了 1220 亿美元，这给了我们灵活性。”

OpenAI 已于 6 月向美国证券交易委员会秘密提交 IPO 招股书，但尚未公开披露计划何时上市。该公司的主要竞争对手 Anthropic 也已向监管机构秘密提交招股书，并且正与潜在投资者举行早期试探性会议，正如 CNBC 此前报道。

Friar 周三告诉员工，即使 Anthropic 先于 OpenAI 上市，也无需担心。

据知情人士称，Friar 表示：“如你们所知，我们已经秘密提交了申请，Anthropic 也已秘密提交。未来几周，他们有可能揭开这份秘密文件并在 9 月上市。没关系，我们在跑自己的比赛。”

OpenAI 在 IPO 前正面临证明其 8520 亿美元估值合理性的压力，投资者也迫切希望更详细地了解该公司的财务状况。

在周三的全员会议上，Friar 向员工展示了一系列幻灯片：OpenAI 的收入年化运行率本季度迄今增长 35%，企业收入年化运行率本季度迄今增长 50%，其 AI 编程和办公产品的周活跃用户数已达到 2000 万。

据《华尔街日报》周三晚间报道，OpenAI 向投资者表示，公司第二季度营收为 67 亿美元，较第一季度增长 18%。正如 CNBC 此前报道，该公司的年化收入运行率近期已超过 400 亿美元。

与此同时，Anthropic 在周末向投资者表示，其年化收入运行率在 7 月末达到 650 亿美元，较一年前增长七倍。正如 CNBC 此前报道，该公司还公布了第二季度 115 亿美元的初步营收数据。

Friar 在全员会议上的表态，发生在 OpenAI 经历一波高管更迭之后；这已导致该公司的一些财务支持者开始担忧其高层内部可能出现混乱。

上周，OpenAI 营收负责人 Denise Dresser 在加入公司仅八个月后离职。她离职两天前，另一位长期高管 Brad Lightcap 表示，将结束自己在 ChatGPT 开发商长达八年的任职，以“开始一些新事情”。OpenAI 产品业务负责人 Fidji Simo 则于 7 月卸任，以专注于慢性病康复。

目前，包括 Friar、OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 以及 OpenAI 总裁 Greg Brockman 在内的留任高管，肩负着展现稳定性的任务。而此时，投资者已愈发担心市场竞争、低成本开放权重模型的采用增加，以及 SpaceX 上市前两个月股价的剧烈波动。

Brockman 在周一接受 CNBC 采访时淡化了对高管离职的担忧，称他认为这种人员流动“实际上并没有那么反常”。

Brockman 表示：“我确实认为，OpenAI 与其他组织的区别在于，我们受到如此多的关注，因此每一次离职都会以其他情况下不会有的方式受到审视。”

观看：Slow Ventures 的 Sam Lessin 表示，OpenAI 或许可以继续保持私有公司身份

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees during an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence lab "will be a public company in 2027," but that it could make its public market debut sooner if "our business continues to inflect."

"The IPO is not a finish line, it is a milestone, another fundraise," Friar told employees, according to two sources familiar with her comments who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly. "We raised $122 billion in March, and that gives us flexibility."

OpenAI confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, but it has not publicly disclosed when it plans to debut. The company's chief rival, Anthropic, has also confidentially filed its prospectus with regulators, and it's been holding early meetings to test the waters with potential investors, as CNBC previously reported.

Friar told employees on Wednesday not to worry if Anthropic makes its debut ahead of OpenAI.

"As you know we are confidentially under file, and Anthropic is also under file. There is a chance they pull the cover off that confidential file in the coming weeks and become public in September. That's OK, we are running our own race," Friar said, according to the people.

OpenAI is under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation ahead of its IPO, and investors are eager to get a more detailed look into the company's finances.

During the all-hands meeting on Wednesday, Friar showed employees a series of slides that said OpenAI's revenue run rate is up 35% quarter to date, its enterprise revenue run rate is up 50% quarter to date and its AI coding and work product has hit 20 million weekly active users.

OpenAI told investors it generated $6.7 billion in revenue for the second quarter, up 18% from the first quarter, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal late Wednesday. The company's annualized revenue run rate recently topped $40 billion, as CNBC previously reported.

Anthropic, meanwhile, told investors over the weekend that its annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July, a sevenfold increase from a year ago. The company also shared a preliminary revenue figure of $11.5 billion for the second quarter, as CNBC previously reported.

Friar's comments at the all-hands meeting come after a wave of executive turnover at OpenAI, which has caused some of the company's financial backers to fret about potential chaos within its upper ranks.

Last week, OpenAI's revenue chief Denise Dresser left her role after just eight months at the company. Her departure came two days after Brad Lightcap, another longtime executive, said he was ending an eight-year stint at the ChatGPT creator to "start something new." Fidji Simo, OpenAI's product business chief, stepped down from her role in July to focus on recovery from chronic illness.

Now, remaining executives, including Friar, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, are tasked with projecting stability at a time when investors are already growing concerned about competition, increased adoption of lower-cost open-weight models, and SpaceX's volatile stock price in its first two months on the market.

Brockman brushed off concerns about the executive departures during an interview with CNBC on Monday, when he stated that he doesn't think the turnover is "actually that atypical."

"I actually think that the difference between OpenAI and other organizations is that we are so much in the spotlight, so every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise," Brockman said.

WATCH: OpenAI probably can stay private, says Slow Ventures’ Sam Lessin