According to Futurism, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stated he is “zero percent” excited about the prospect of being a public company CEO. This comes amidst industry rumors from late October that OpenAI is laying groundwork for a potential IPO that could value the company at a staggering $1 trillion. Altman made the comments on the “Big Technology Podcast,” cryptically adding that OpenAI will be “very late to go public” and refusing to confirm any plans for a 2026 debut. He also admitted the company is currently in a “code red” state, pushing employees to improve ChatGPT at the expense of other projects due to competitive threats. Altman specifically named Google as an “extremely powerful” and “huge threat,” expecting to declare such emergency pushes maybe twice a year going forward.
The IPO Dread Is Real
Here’s the thing: Altman’s lack of excitement isn’t just typical CEO modesty. It’s a genuine preview of the hellscape a public OpenAI would inhabit. Right now, the company operates under intense scrutiny, but it’s largely from the press, rivals, and a board that famously tried to fire him. Going public swaps that for the relentless, quarterly tyranny of Wall Street. Every delayed product, every missed revenue projection, every technical hiccup with ChatGPT becomes a crisis that moves a multi-hundred-billion-dollar needle. And let’s be honest, Altman’s leadership style—mercurial, big-vision, occasionally chaotic—isn’t exactly tailor-made for the predictable, paint-by-numbers world of public earnings calls. He basically admitted the job would be “really annoying.” That’s a massive understatement.
Bubble Trouble
His timing is also… interesting. The entire AI sector is starting to face a brutal reckoning. Experts have warned for a while now that we’re in a bubble. The problem? The technology is insanely expensive to build and run, and the path to sustainable, massive profitability is still kinda fuzzy. When you hear rumors of a $100 billion SpaceX IPO and a trillion-dollar OpenAI IPO in the same breath, it feels a lot like peak hype. Altman knows this. A public market debut would force OpenAI to justify its “sky-high buzz” with cold, hard numbers every 90 days, during what might be a sector-wide correction. That’s a terrifying proposition.
Permanent Code Red
Maybe the most telling part of all this is the “code red” admission. Think about that. This is the company that kicked off the modern AI arms race, and its CEO is telling employees to drop everything to fend off competitors. He’s not just worried about Google. He’s institutionalizing a state of perpetual panic, guessing they’ll be in this emergency mode once or twice a year “for a long time.” That is not the stable, predictable growth narrative public market investors crave. It’s the narrative of a brutal, winner-take-all tech war where today’s leader could be tomorrow’s also-ran. How do you put a stable valuation on that?
The Fate He Created
So we’re left with a fascinating contradiction. Sam Altman, more than perhaps anyone, unleashed this AI frenzy. He created a company with a valuation that demands a historic exit, like an IPO. But he’s now visibly recoiling from the logical conclusion of his own creation. The scrutiny, the pressure, the accountability—it all multiplies exponentially the moment the ticker symbol starts flashing. He’s unhappy with the fate he’s created because he knows better than anyone how fragile the whole edifice still is. The products aren’t fully baked, the competition is ferocious, and the costs are astronomical. Going public doesn’t solve those problems. It just puts a spotlight on them and invites millions of shareholders to scream about it. Can you blame him for dreading it?
