OpenAI has a job opening for investment bankers only. It offers equity
If you’re a junior banker who was excited to work on the OpenAI IPO this summer (and was left dejected by the rumors of a delay), then have have no fear. Because OpenAI might not need your bank right now, but it might need you.
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OpenAI is hiring a full-time investment banker in San Francisco. The job posting lists two years of experience in investment banking specifically, which means “live transaction execution”, as well as “the production of high-quality analyses, financial models, and client materials,” among others.
The job entails benchmarking, basically, in the same way that AI labs have hired bankers before: making sure that the financial analysis produced by an AI agent is useful. That analysis can include research, valuation, and due diligence.
What appears new about OpenAI’s posting is that it is looking for full-time bankers. Previously, it was paying by the hour; now it is looking for full-time bankers. The firm is offering up to $205k in salary, as well as equity. The salary is basically on par with what a junior investment banker earns; the equity might be exponentially more lucrative, depending on OpenAI’s IPO. That seems to have been delayed to next year, and CEO Sam Altman said earlier this week that any valuation below $1tn was a "nonstarter". OpenAI's latest funding round, in May this year, valued the firm at $852bn.
OpenAI is far from the only firm hiring investment bankers. Anthropic has a team of product managers who are ex-bankers, traders, and the likes. The 40-person strong contingent is led by Dianne Na, a former JPMorgan high-yield bond trader.
xAI, which runs the chatbot Grok, was also hiring finance experts recently. It had a job posting two months ago for a “Finance Expert” with experience in “structured finance or related fields”, which according to the firm includes both investment bankers and operations analysts.
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