Converting from a nonprofit happens rarely, especially for organizations this wealthy. OpenAI has two years to do so.

OpenAI's history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders.

OpenAI may soon become a for-profit company with fewer checks and balances than before — the exact structure it was built to avoid.

When a company transitions from purpose to profit, people and planet-oriented priorities tend to fall short. Does it have to be that way?

OpenAI is closing in on raising $6.5 billion — the largest venture capital raise in history. But in order to do so it looks like it will need to do the Delaware equivalent of selling its soul — it will have to overhaul its governance structure so that it's no longer controlled by a nonprofit organization.

Even investors might not get much out of it Opinion Once upon a time, OpenAI was purely a non-profit. Really. It was established in December 2015 as a non-profit AI research organization. Now it appears increasingly likely that OpenAI will become a for-profit company.