AI

OpenAI tops the charts for +$1 million tech pay packages

SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son (L) talks online with Sam Altman, CEO of US OpenAI, during the lecture "Softbank World 2025" in Minato Ward, Tokyo, on July 16, 2025.
Sam Altman (right), CEO of OpenAI, talks online at an event with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son in Tokyo Yomiuri Shimbun via Reuters Connect
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Levels.fyi gets tech workers to submit their compensation offers and then crunches the numbers so folks can weigh how their pay compares to others across the industry.

​​Over the past year, 42 tech workers have sent in pay packages worth more than $1 million. This is before any stock appreciation, which is important to note because tech compensation is mostly equity-based. Levels.fyi data guru Hakeem Shibly ranked these by company.

OpenAI really stands out here. And Nvidia seems too low to me. Again, this is based on employees sharing the offers they get, so it's not perfect. For instance, it could mean OpenAI employees desperately want everyone to know how much they make.

Still, this ranking is really interesting:

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Alistair Barr, global tech editor of Business Insider, smiles at the camera while wearing a blue and white striped shirt.
Alistair Barr
Alistair Barr is the author of Business Insider's Tech Memo newsletter and the driving force behind the company's AI Insider franchise. Sign up here. Before that, he was Business Insider's Global Tech Editor and the Big Tech team leader at Bloomberg, following a reporting career at The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, and MarketWatch. Alistair covers all things Big Tech, along with startups and venture capital. He writes analysis and columns about topics including AI, cloud computing, data centers, semiconductors, online search, e-commerce, EVs, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.