OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earns $76,000 annually without owning any equity in his company: "This is my lifelong aspiration."

Unlike other high-paid tech executives, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, chooses to earn a smaller salary in order to pursue work that he is passionate about.

At the New York Times' DealBook Summit last week, Altman, a co-founder of the artificial intelligence company, stated that he didn't take any equity in OpenAI when it launched in late 2015. Instead, he was more focused on securing a front-row seat to the AI arms race. Currently, he serves as OpenAI's CEO and earns $76,000 per year.

"Altman, 39, stated that his childhood dream job was to work on artificial general intelligence and collaborate with the brightest researchers in the world on a thrilling journey."

OpenAI is a nonprofit organization with a for-profit arm, run by Altman. He declined an equity stake because the organization required a majority disinterested board to obtain nonprofit status, and he wanted to demonstrate his ability to maintain separation between his personal and professional interests, as he stated on the "All-In" podcast in May.

OpenAI was recently valued at $157 billion, meaning a 1% stake would be worth $1.57 billion. However, the former president of Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, who is already a billionaire with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion from equity in Stripe, Reddit, and nuclear fusion firm Helion, according to Forbes, likely doesn't need the money.

At DealBook, Altman stated that working at OpenAI, despite the recent tax filing revealing his $76,001 salary, is more valuable to him than any additional income.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, has maintained a small base salary of $81,840 for decades, while much of his estimated $242.6 billion net worth comes from the equity he retains in the company. In contrast, Elon Musk recently lost a bid for a $56 billion salary package at Tesla, which would have been the largest compensation plan for a public company executive in U.S. history.

Elon Musk, who is also a co-founder of OpenAI, is currently suing the company to prevent it from fully transitioning into a for-profit enterprise.

Altman's decision not to take an equity stake in OpenAI has previously caused concern among investors, who saw it as a sign that he didn't believe the organization would succeed, he said. During a recent team meeting, Altman stated that he had no plans to take an equity stake in OpenAI as its board considers a for-profit structure, according to a person in attendance.

Altman stated at DealBook that if he could go back in time, he would have taken a small amount of equity to avoid having to answer the current question.

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