On December 14, The Wall Street Journal revealed that OpenAI notified its staff the previous week of a significant change to its compensation policy: the elimination of the 'vesting cliff' for equity. This means that employees will no longer be required to complete a six-month tenure before their equity begins to vest. The announcement, made by Fidji Simo, Head of Applications at OpenAI, is designed to inspire new recruits to innovate fearlessly, alleviating concerns about potential dismissal before they receive their initial equity allocation.

Earlier this year, in April, OpenAI had already taken a step to attract talent by reducing the equity vesting period for new hires from the industry-standard one year to just six months. Notably, xAI, a company owned by Musk, implemented a comparable change later in the summer. These adjustments underscore the intense rivalry for premier technical expertise within the AI sector.