New document shows OpenAI's journey from nonprofit to $157 bn worth company

Back in 2016, a scientific research organisation incorporated in Delaware and based in Mountain View, California, applied to be recognized as a tax-exempt charitable organization by the Internal Revenue Services.

Called OpenAI, the nonprofit told the IRS its goal was to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.

Its assets included a USD 10 million loan from one of its four founding directors and now CEO, Sam Altman.

The application, which non-profits are required to disclose and which OpenAI provided to The Associated Press, offers a view back in time to the origins of the artificial intelligence giant that has since grown to include a for-profit subsidiary recently valued at USD 157 billion by investors.

It's one measure of the vast distance OpenAI and the technology that it researches and develops has traveled in under a decade.

In the application, OpenAI indicated it did no