OpenAI: What Does Company Do and What Can It Do to Keep the Workers
Recently, OpenAI has experienced significant changes, shifting from a non-profit organization to a for-profit. Unfortunately, this event was not met pleasantly by the company's employees and some of its founders. People started leaving the company. How to stop them?
OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as an artificial intelligence research organization. The founders include Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba, along with several others. Back then, the company focused on ensuring the beneficial development of artificial intelligence without commercial or harmful use of the technology. In 2019, the company shifted from a non-profit organization to a capped-profit organization. A capped-profit organization is a business model that balances the need for investment and the mission of public benefit.
Recently, the company has been experiencing significant changes. First created as a small research company focusing on AI research, OpenAI gained enormous fame in November 2022 after the launching of ChatGPT - an AI chatbot that forms human-like responses to the asked questions. During the first 5 days, the platform acquired 1 million users (for instance, Instagram reaches 1 million downloads every 2,5 months). However, with more fame came more money, and the head of the company did not know how to manage them while keeping up the company's pace. Eventually, a non-profit organization started restructuring towards a for-profit organization, which is supposed to make the company more attractive to investors and push its growth.
Such sudden changes in the company caused identity confusion for ordinary workers and even the founders of OpenAI. Besides, the enormous pressure of the fast-working environment, resulting from the company's fast growth, causes workers’ burnout. The increased amount of work aligned with the company’s fame makes workers think their salary is insufficient. All the listed causes lead to one of the biggest problems in the company’s history - people are leaving OpenAI.
In order to better understand steps that the company takes to increase the satisfaction of the workers let’s divide factors that influence the workers’ satisfaction in two groups according to Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. The theory claims that there are hygiene factors and motivators factors. Hygiene factors (also called extrinsic factors) are the elements of the work environment that do not inherently motivate employees, but if they are absent or inadequate, they can lead to dissatisfaction. These factors are related to the conditions under which people work rather than their work, thar includes salary, job security, company policy, etc. Motivator factors are the elements that directly increase job motivation and employer satisfaction. These factors are related to the nature of the job, including achievement, recognition, work, self-growth, etc.
Hygiene Factors Implication
The first important strategy addressing the hygiene factor is having employees' stock options. That can be a powerful psychological tool that will make the workers directly correlate the company's financial success and their personal financial success. Even though OpenAI does not offer its employees stock options, it offers PPU (profit participation unit) instead. PPUs are similar to stock options. With stock options, employees receive the right to buy a set number of shares at a predetermined price. With PPUs, employees receive a promise to share in the company's profits if the company makes them. The company implemented this practice in 2019, transitioning from a non-profit organization to a capped profit. Besides, the practice also addresses cognitive dissonance in workers when applied correctly. Cognitive dissonance occurs in one’s head when the conflict between an individual’s beliefs and actions happens. If stock options are tied to the impact goals of the company, such as AI safety, the cognitive dissonance in workers' minds will decrease since they will see the correlation between their social contribution and financial reward.
Another implementation that can address the hygiene factor is shifting the company’s employee policy toward work-life balance. The company already offers flexible work conditions and wellness programs. However, more work should be done to ensure the workers’ well-being. In 2022, Microsoft launched a program called Microsoft Viva that provides workers with data-driven insights into their work patterns, suggesting areas for improvement regarding work-life balance. A similar application can be developed by OpenAI to decrease the level of stress that workers feel due to the fast growth of the company.
Motivator Factors Impication
On the other hand, the implementations that will satisfy the workers' motivator factors are reaffirming the mission and values and offering professional development courses to the workers.
If the people who joined the company during its non-profit state now doubt the remaining of the company’s mission, the head of the company should communicate with the ordinary workers, reassuring them that the mission of social benefit still stands above the profit for the company’s philosophy. The company has already showcased its achievements and projects in the field of social impact to the public. However, OpenAI can also empathize with prioritizing scientific research over the company's daily operations based on the examples of other companies. One of the great examples of a for-profit company that aligns its mission with its actions, constantly reassuring employees of the efficient work of the company in terms of social and environmental impact, is Patagonia. Patagonia allows the employees to have a 2-month volunteer opportunity in the environmental organization after one year of work, paying for the time off. OpenAI can create a similar program for its employees, such as scientific volunteers in AI research.
Additionally, the company's employees can be recruited to work on the strategies that require the development of the additional platform. Recruiting ordinary workers to work on the development of the platforms can satisfy both - their research interest (since the developed program will be AI-driven) and their moral values of social benefit, which they can relate a lot to, as people who initially joined OpenAI, as a non-profit organization.
Conclusion
Even though OpenAI has contributed to increasing its workers’ motivation. The changes that the company is experiencing right now require more investments, both monetary and psychological. The company has been doing a good job in implementing popular practices in big corporations, such as learning opportunities, work-life balance policies, and stock options. However, the extent to which these practices have been applied is not enough for such a big corporation, into which OpenAI is now transforming. That is why the company needs to invest more in platforms supporting its motivation strategies and providing professional opportunities for its workers.