OpenAI owes us $180 billion

Summary

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Today, Explained – “OpenAI owes us $180 billion”

Podcast: Today, Explained (Vox)
Episode Date: March 25, 2026
Hosts: Sean Rameshborn, Noel King
Main Guests: Sarah Hirschender (Vox), Katherine Bracey (TechEquity)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the dramatic organizational transformation of OpenAI from its origins as a nonprofit aimed at benefiting humanity with safe artificial intelligence, to its current state as a public benefit corporation with a for-profit structure and obligations to give away $180 billion for social good. The hosts examine whether OpenAI’s charitable claims and legal structure deliver on their promises, and feature insights from a reporter and a prominent critic—delving into the legal and ethical concerns about OpenAI’s governance, conflicts of interest, and philanthropic commitments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Shift of OpenAI

• [02:22] Sarah Hirschender: OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit AI lab by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others, with the explicit purpose:

  “to Develop AI in a way that is safe and that will benefit humanity... Because they figured that this technology was going to be so transformative that we need to make sure there's no profit motive involved.”

• [03:15] Sean Rameshborn:

  “The reason for our structure and the reason it's so weird is we think this technology, the benefits, the access to it, the governance of it belongs to humanity as a whole.”

• [04:02] Sarah Hirschender: As OpenAI’s technology advanced (notably with ChatGPT), the costs of development exploded, leading OpenAI to create a "capped profit" for-profit arm. This permitted outside investment—under nonprofit ownership—and eventually led them to attempt a full transition in 2024 to a Delaware public benefit corporation.

• [05:20] Sarah Hirschender:

  “They were eventually able to come up with a deal with the Attorney General of California… that split OpenAI formally into two arms: a corporation that may eventually go public, and a new philanthropy—the original nonprofit... now with new responsibilities.”

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2. OpenAI’s New Structure: Philanthropy and Oversight

• [05:25] - [06:42] The new philanthropic arm has two legal jobs:

  1. Grantmaking – Giving away money for public benefit;
  2. Oversight – Supervising the for-profit company.

• The nonprofit’s board is almost identical to the for-profit’s, raising alarm bells about independence and conflict of interest ([10:54] Sean / [11:04] Sarah).

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3. Controversy and Criticism

• Deals with Pentagon and Lobbying:

  • OpenAI has made headlines for taking Pentagon contracts and opposing certain state-level AI safety measures, while competitor Anthropic (founded by ex-OpenAI employees) was seen as more ethically restrictive in its government dealings ([07:49] Sean / [08:02] Sarah).

• Public Perceptions of Ethics:

  • OpenAI is “not stepping forward in a real leadership way around what it means to be an ethical AI company.”

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4. Is OpenAI Fulfilling Its Charitable Promise?

• $180B Figure:

  • OpenAI’s nonprofit has $180 billion in shares—more than double the Gates Foundation’s resources.
  • So far, only $40.5 million has been given to community nonprofits—a “tiny sliver” (0.02%) of the available funds ([09:28] Sarah).

  “I did the math here... about 0.02% of $180 billion.”

• The initial public pledge is $25 billion to charity, focused on “scientific research and health” and “AI resilience”, but “we have no idea what that's actually going to look like” ([09:28] Sarah).

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5. Legal and Ethical Challenges – Katherine Bracey Interview

a. Nonprofit Law and Structure

• [14:03]–[16:10] Katherine Bracey (TechEquity) explains:

  • Nonprofits are tax-exempt precisely because they serve a public mission.
  • Any intellectual property or equity created under the nonprofit “can never be divested from the charitable sector.”

• [17:14] Katherine Bracey:

  “Basically, every day that OpenAI exists, they are violating the law. And actually what they're doing is just daring the Attorney General to hold them accountable for it… They’re making a bet that the AG will not sort of pursue this in any way that's actually meaningful.”

b. Conflict of Interest and Scientific Independence

• [20:33] Katherine Bracey:

  • Personal context: “They announced this week a list of priorities the foundation would be investing in. They listed as one of their priorities Alzheimer's research. My mother is currently dying of Alzheimer's.”

  • Larger concern:

    “What happens… if research funded by OpenAI’s foundation finds that actually anthropic’s models are better at drug discovery... than ChatGPT?... What does it mean for the independence of scientific research if all of this research is funded by an entity that has an irreconcilable conflict of interest?”

• Analogy:

  “We would not accept the science around nicotine that tobacco companies were funding... And we should not accept that this scientific research is funded by an entity that has a vested financial interest in the outcome.”

c. Philanthropy as PR/Market Building?

• Bracey is critical of OpenAI’s philanthropy, likening it to Google’s corporate giving arm, google.org, which she calls “an arm of the marketing department” ([23:04] Katherine Bracey).

  “That’s a market building opportunity for them. That’s not actually anything that’s going to ensure that AI is developed for the benefit of humanity.”

d. The Fight for Democratic Oversight

• [23:45] Katherine Bracey:

  “AI is not inevitable. The way it develops is not inevitable. And we do not have to take these companies at their word that they know best how to govern this technology. We should have bigger imaginations about what’s possible…. This should give us more energy and motivation to fix what’s broken about our democracy…”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sarah Hirschender [03:15]:
  “You should not trust one company and certainly not one person.”

• Sean Rameshborn [11:28]:
  “Trust us. We’re professionals.” (mocking OpenAI’s response to conflicts of interest)

• Katherine Bracey [15:43]:
  “Disappointment, I would say, was my initial reaction... then the secondary response was, well, what can we do about this?”

• Katherine Bracey [17:14]:
  “Basically, every day that OpenAI exists, they are violating the law… just daring the Attorney General to hold them accountable for it.”

• Katherine Bracey [20:33]:
  “We would not accept the science around nicotine that tobacco companies were funding... And we should not accept that this scientific research is funded by an entity that has a vested financial interest in the outcome.”

• Katherine Bracey [18:51]:
  “As the kids would say, they’re playing in our faces.”

• Katherine Bracey [24:29]:
  Q: “Do you ever talk to Sam Altman anymore?”
  A: “He doesn't return my calls.”

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Timeline of Critical Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 02:22 | OpenAI’s nonprofit origins (Sarah Hirschender) | | 04:02 | The creation of a for-profit “capped profit” arm | | 05:20 | Transition to public benefit corporation and philanthropic split | | 07:01 | Rising controversies and Pentagon dealings | | 09:28 | Where is the $180 billion? Foundation’s limited giving so far | | 10:54 | Concerns about overlapping boards/conflicts of interest | | 14:03 | Katherine Bracey’s criticisms and the nonprofit/for-profit tension | | 17:14 | Legal argument: daily violation of nonprofit law | | 20:33 | Scientific independence and conflicts in OpenAI philanthropy | | 23:04 | Is charitable giving just market development? | | 24:27 | Call for broader democratic oversight of AI | | 24:29 | Sam Altman no longer returns Bracey's calls |

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Tone & Takeaways

Throughout the episode, the tone is skeptical, witty, and at times critical—punctuated with moments of earnestness, especially from Bracey regarding science, philanthropy, and her personal connection to Alzheimer’s research. The podcast raises deep questions about whether OpenAI’s hybrid structure is legally tenable and ethically sound, and whether its philanthropic promises are more than just PR.

Final thought:
As Bracey puts it, “AI is not inevitable... We do not have to take these companies at their word that they know best how to govern this technology.”

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This summary covers all major points and discussions, keeping the essence and tone of the original episode, and is organized to provide clarity and depth for those who haven’t listened to the episode firsthand.

Transcript

[Sean Rameshborn]

Chatgpt. You either love it or you hate it. Am I right? You love it because it tells you why your back keeps doing that. You hate it because it uses a boatload of fresh water to do so. Or maybe you hate it because after OpenAI trained chat on centuries of humanity's creative labor, its leader Sam Altman said he wants to sell it right back to us. We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter and use it for whatever they want to use it for.

[Katherine Bracey]

Cool.

[Sean Rameshborn]

But wait, ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI, has the potential to do tons of good, too. Turns out they've got $180 billion of charitable monies to give away to humanity to help our cause. That's more than double what the Gates foundation has to play with. OpenAI owes us $180 billion. But are we gonna get it on today? Explained from Vox. Here we go. Once upon a Monday morning, Barb's day got busy without warning. A realtor in need of an open house sign. No. 50 of them and designed before 9. My head hurts. Any mighty tools to help with his plight? Aha. Barb made her move. She opened Canva and got in the groove. Bulk creating canva sheets. Create 50 signs fit for suburban streets. Done in a click. All complete. Sweet. Now imagine what your dreams can become. Put imagination to [e-mail] uh, are you stuck staring at your W2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up the fix. Using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the Credit Kar app. Hey Chat. Introduce Today Explained. The podcast. Of course. Today Explained is a daily news podcast from Vox. Each episode takes a single no, just introduce it like you're introducing the show. Like this is Today Explained. Ah, got it. This is Today Explained. Show me the money. Chat. Sarah Hershander from Vox is here to tell us where to start.

[Sarah Hirschender]

I think we would have to start back in 2015, so that's when OpenAI started. OpenAI began as a nonprofit. It began as this nonprofit AI lab founded by a few donors, including some extremely familiar names like Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

[Sean Rameshborn]

It's very important that we have the advent of AI in a good way.

[Sarah Hirschender]

And they founded it as a nonprofit to Develop AI in a way that is safe and that will benefit humanity. And they created it as a nonprofit lab instead of as a corporation or as like a for profit startup, which is normally what we would see for this kind of thing. Because they figured that this technology was going to be so transformative that we need to make sure there's no profit motive involved. So nobody is going to make money off of what we're making.

[Sean Rameshborn]

The reason for our structure and the reason it's so weird is we think this technology, the benefits, the access to it, the governance of it belongs to humanity as a whole. You should like, not if this really works, it's like quite a powerful technology. And you should not trust one company and certainly not one person.

[Sarah Hirschender]

I think that was 2015. Fast forward a few years and AI starts getting a lot of buzz because of a new product called ChatGPT that OpenAI, the nonprofit lab developed.

[Katherine Bracey]

A new artificial intelligence tool is going

[Sarah Hirschender]

viral for cranking out entire essays in a matter of seconds.

[Sean Rameshborn]

We have about 100 million weekly active users now on ChatGPT. OpenAI is the most advanced and the most widely used AI platform in the world now.

[Sarah Hirschender]

So over time, OpenAI was saying, you know, we need a lot more money to be able to do this properly. Costs a lot of money to develop AI. It costs money to like hire people, the computing power, all of it costs a lot of money. So like, we need investors. We can't just rely on donations and sort of the tax breaks that we get as a nonprofit to develop this stuff. And so they created this like what's called like a capped profit subsidiary, which was like a little for profit arm that they could use to raise that money. It would still be under the control of the nonprofit as kind of like the umbrella parent organization. But they were able to raise some money to some extent. A lot more money started pouring in, a lot more interest from investors started pouring in. And OpenAI was kind of struggling to reconcile the nonprofit part of their mission and the fact that they were becoming this enormous one of the most well known tech companies in the country. So 2024, OpenAI decided that they wanted to completely disentangle themselves from these nonprofit roots. So they no longer wanted this cap profit model where investors could only get a certain amount of their investment back. They wanted to be able to raise as much money as they wanted and they wanted to be able to kind of behave like any other sort of for profit AI company would.

[Katherine Bracey]

Basically what it wants to do is

[Sarah Hirschender]

it wants to become a Delaware public benefit corporation.

[Katherine Bracey]

And what that is, it's really just

[Sarah Hirschender]

like a traditional corporation, but with some permission to do some public goods, spend on public benefit. The whole raison d' etre of OpenAI was to build artificial general intelligence, but for the good of humanity. That's why initially it was a not for profit. But then suddenly they realized they needed a ton of money to be able to access the compute to build AGI. And therefore the awkwardness began. They were eventually able to come up with sort of a deal with the Attorney General of California, which is where the company was based, that split OpenAI formally into two arms. One is the corporation, an OpenAI corporation that may eventually go public. And the other is this new philanthropy, which is basically the original nonprofit that is now still the parent umbrella organization of OpenAI the company. But it also has these new responsibilities. Basically, the philanthropy has two jobs. One is to do grantmaking, so like giving money to other charities. The other one is to do oversight over OpenAI the company. And then on the side of sort of oversight, we haven't at least publicly seen the OpenAI foundation, now that it has this sort of formalized role via this deal with the Attorney General. We haven't seen them really step up in a different, at least not yet.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Can you tell me how OpenAI has sort of made it clear to the public that this is no longer like a touchy feely for, you know, for the good of humanity operation? It feels like they've entered into controversy several times in the past few years.

[Sarah Hirschender]

I mean, I don't think, I don't want to speak for them. I don't think they would identify as not being a touchy feely for a good operation. I think they're actually trying very hard to still appear that way. And I don't want to be too cynical here. This whole deal is like super, super new. So it is possible that we'll be seeing a lot of changes coming in the next year or two. But I think at least so far this year, OpenAI has made a lot of headlines because of its deal with the Pentagon and the way that it's behaved in these negotiations and its competitor, Anthropic, which was actually founded by former OpenAI employees who were disgruntled about some of OpenAI's decisions about converting from the nonprofit. OpenAI has come across as the company that was willing to negotiate with the Pentagon in a different way than Anthropic was.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Anthropic said it had two red lines that it would not cross. The Pentagon said that it was going to move to declare the company a supply chain risk. And so OpenAI stepped in, said they're going to take this contract, but they want to have some safeguards.

[Sarah Hirschender]

Anthropic came across in that whole negotiation as a company that was willing to stand up against the Pentagon to put down some red lines on where it did and did not want its technology to be used, whereas OpenAI did simply did not come across that way. It's unclear exactly what those negotiations looked like, but that is at least sort of what the public has taken, I think, from those interactions. And then we've also seen OpenAI get into a little bit of trouble because of some of its lobbying around AI safety. It's been opposed to different statewide AI safety measures. And they say that they do that because they want a federal safety measure that they're kind of collaborating with the Trump administration on. But at the same time, I think a lot of critics have raised alarms about the fact that they've been opposed to those kinds of safety measures, which Anthropic, again, this competitor to OpenAI has embraced. So I think, at least from the public's perception, I'm not saying that this is everything that's going on within OpenAI, but the perception is certainly not that OpenAI is stepping forward in a real leadership way around what it means to be an ethical AI company, specifically given its nonprofit roots.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Okay, so that's what's been going on on the for profit side. What about the not for profit side? Is, is there anything happening there with $180 billion of, of. Of shares, I guess, in OpenAI.

[Sarah Hirschender]

So I spoke to a spokesperson at OpenAI who says that there is a lot going on behind the scenes, but there is not that lot that we've been seeing so far. Like I said, we have seen that $40.5 million going to different community nonprofits, which is great. I talked to some of the nonprofits. They're wonderful. But I think 40.5 million is, I did the math here, like on the back of a napkin, but, like, it's about 0.02% of $180 billion. And while OpenAI has said that it will be giving as an initial promise, $25 billion to charity falling into two buckets. One is focused on, like, scientific research and health, and one is focused on what they're calling AI resilience, we have no idea what that's actually going to look like, giving OpenAI the benefit of the doubt. This deal was made in October. $180 billion is a lot of money. You almost don't want them to start giving away that much that quickly. You want to see them slowly building up their team. And a really important thing to note is that the board of directors of the OpenAI foundation is almost identical to the board of directors of OpenAI, the corporation. There is one member of the foundation board that is different. Again, that might change over the course of the year. But the fact that the OpenAI foundation doesn't have that sort of independent structure just yet has raised a lot of alarms.

[Sean Rameshborn]

You're saying the people who are influencing decisions on the for profit side of OpenAI are the same people influencing decisions or a lack thereof on the not

[Sarah Hirschender]

for profit side, with the exception of one member, yes. And when I asked OpenAI about this and sort of raised the alarm bells that a lot of people had about the idea that these board members could kind of put on a different hat when they're meeting about the foundation and when meeting about the corporation, the answer was basically, we have conflict of interest policies and they know how to do that.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Trust us. We're professionals.

[Sarah Hirschender]

Basically trust us. Which I think it raised a lot of doubts for a lot of the critics who've been skeptical about the restructuring.

[Sean Rameshborn]

That was Sarah Hirschender. She's a fellow at Future Perfect here at Vox. It's a section of the yellow website that focuses on making the world a better place. Imagine that in a minute on Today. Explained. Also from Vox, we're going to hear from one of OpenAI's most prominent critics. She's not just skeptical about this restructuring, she thinks it's illegal. It's not just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose, proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously. And we do too. Which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose, in every detail and crafted with intention. Timberland Built on Craft Visit timberland.com to shop now at the Home Depot. Receive 12 months special financing and free basic installation on carpet projects with lifeproof. Lifeproof with pet proof technology. Home decorators collection and traffic Master Carpet Bring a new look to your floors or give them a durable surface that stands up to life's tough messes. Get 12 months special financing on installed carpet projects right now at the Home Depot. Offer valid March 12 through March 29, 2026. Exclusions and additional charges may apply for licenses. See homedepot.com licensenumbers Starting a business can

[Katherine Bracey]

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[Sean Rameshborn]

I can't wait to work with you on crimes. I'm really excited to dive in and explore all the angles with you. Katherine Bracey is the head of Tech Equity. It's an advocacy group whose main position is that tech growth should benefit everyone. She also knows Sam Altman.

[Katherine Bracey]

We worked together back in the day and then kind of went out of touch with each other for a few years. And then when I was writing a book about venture capital, I was really interested in OpenAI's nonprofit model. And Sam had been very explicit that the reason they founded OpenAI as a nonprofit was to put the technology at arm's length from investors because they knew investors would exploit it in a way that would make this technology, which they thought was very dangerous, actually live up to that potential danger. And so I wanted to talk to him about the decision making process behind that. And he was very forthcoming about that being, yes, the explicit reason why OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit. And they put a lot of thought and capacity and energy into creating this governance structure and that would protect the technology from the whims of investors, the incentives of investors, the imperatives that investors put on technology companies. And a few months later, I saw that all come crashing down. And that has really stuck with me and informs a lot of the work that we're doing today to ensure that the nonprofit maintains the mission that it started out with.

[Sean Rameshborn]

We asked Katherine how she felt when she found out that OpenAI was gonna try and have it both ways. Mission driven nonprofit, but also money driven for profit.

[Katherine Bracey]

Disappointment, I would say, was my initial reaction. And then the secondary response was, well, what can we do about this? And many of us kind of came together into this coalition that really started asking questions about the responsibility of the nonprofit and the responsibility of the Attorney General of California to enforce nonprofit law. And, you know, things kind of went from there.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Tell me more about that. What's nonprofit law look like as it pertains to, say, OpenAI?

[Katherine Bracey]

Essentially, you know, I run a nonprofit in the tax code. That means that, you know, my organization does not need to pay taxes, but in return for that tax exemption, we are required to opt operate in service of a public service mission. Our mission is to ensure that the tech industry is creating opportunity for everybody. OpenAI's nonprofit mission is to ensure that AI develops for the benefit of all of humanity. And legally, Sam Altman is required to prioritize OpenAI's mission above all else. And that means that anything that is created under that sort of tax exempt banner is owned by the can never be divested from the charitable sector. So when they decided they were going to split the nonprofit from the for profit, they found that actually legally, they could not do that without divesting both the intellectual property that the nonprofit owned, including all of the intellectual property that was created, you know, that underlies the, you know, ChatGPT model, and the equity stake that the nonprofit owned in the for profit company. And so I think they looked at that price tag and they said, that's not a price we're willing to pay. And so, so instead of sort of splitting the nonprofit from the for profit, they decided to sort of continue down this path of nonprofit ownership, which in my mind is completely untenable, unsustainable, and irreconcilable. Basically, every day that OpenAI exists, they are violating the law. And actually what they're they're doing is just daring the Attorney General to hold them accountable for it. I think they think they're too big to be held accountable, and they need the AG to assume that he will not win a case. And that's kind of what they've done. They've loaded up on lawyers and they are making a bet that the AG will not sort of pursue this in any way that's actually meaningful.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Okay, so if I'm following you, despite the fact that OpenAI has split itself into a for profit arm and a non for profit army, their not for profit mission still overrides everything they do. And because of that, they are violating California law, because there's no way that the nonprofit interests are ever gonna be primary in their business.

[Katherine Bracey]

Right. I mean, I think as the kids would say, they're playing in our faces. I mean, they expect us to take their word that as they operate, as they make deals with the Defense Department to develop autonomous weapons and surveillance systems on American citizens, as they battle parents in court whose children have committed suicide due to conversations that these kids were having with their chatbots, and as they subpoena these parents for the list of People who attended their children's memorial service as part of those lawsuits. They expect us to believe that the nonprofit mission is being prioritized over the profit motivation of the company. We all know that OpenAI's overriding priority is to, quote, unquote, win the AI race. It's to beat out the competition in the marketplace, and it's to establish the biggest AI company they can create. And to the extent that the nonprofit mission ever comes into tension with that, the company will always prioritize profits over the mission. But a law is only as good as its enforcement. And I think if there's one sort of rule of Silicon Valley, it is to ask forgiveness and not permission. And breaking the law and skirting regulations is part of the venture capital playbook. I think they said this is worth it. There's enough money on the line for us to just break the law and do the PR work and the lobbying work and the other work that we need to do to ensure that these laws will never be enforced against us.

[Sean Rameshborn]

And when you talk about PR work, lobbying work, are you talking about, like, saying, we're going to give away this $180 billion eventually?

[Katherine Bracey]

Well, here's the thing. They announced this week a list of priorities that the foundation would be investing in. They listed as one of their priorities Alzheimer's research. My mother is currently dying of Alzheimer's.

[Sean Rameshborn]

I'm sorry.

[Katherine Bracey]

Thank you. I have one copy of the gene that puts me at extreme risk of developing ALZH Alzheimer's when I'm older. So I pray every day that AI helps us find a solution to Alzheimer's fast enough that I can benefit from it, that my family can benefit from it. And so I'm thrilled to see them make a commitment to deploying AI to find cures to Alzheimer's and other diseases. But let me ask you a question. What happens, do you think, if the research that's funded by OpenAI's foundation finds that actually anthropics models are better at drug discovery or scientific breakthroughs than ChatGPT or any of OpenAI's other models? What do you think happens then? And what does it mean for the independence of scientific research if all of this research is funded by an entity that has an irreconcilable conflict of interest? We would not accept the science around nicotine that tobacco companies were funding. We do not accept the science around alcohol addiction that the alcohol companies fund. We do not accept the science around sugared beverages from the soda industry. And we should not accept that this scientific research is funded by an entity that has a vested financial interest in the outcome. And that is why it is so critically important that the OpenAI foundation actually be independent, that it have an independent board, that it can deploy its resources independently, that the research that it is funding is independent. And if you worry about, if you wonder about whether this is actually true, you should ask any of the researchers who were given access to Faith Facebook's data and ask what happened to them, and they will tell you that it does not work to do research, independent research that is funded by the tech industry, on the impact of the tech industry's own platforms.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Do you still think that we're maybe better off that OpenAI says that they want to give billions away to better society than say, anthropic Google maybe having some pledges to give money away, but not nearly as much. Is it still better that they want to give money away at all?

[Katherine Bracey]

Well, Google has a corporate foundation. It's called google.org and I expect in this structure, with the tension and the conflict of interest that the OpenAI foundation has, that it will operate much more like google.org, which is essentially an arm of the marketing department, a corporate social responsibility program that sort of gives money to innocuous groups, but will never do anything that undercuts Google's priorities. And I think if you read between the lines of OpenAI's press release, the work they say they want to continue doing with community funding is all about convincing people about the importance and value and benefit in using AI. I mean, that's a market building opportunity for them. That's not actually anything that's going to ensure that AI is developed for the benefit of humanity. And so no, I don't think that they're going to operate any differently than any of the other companies. You know, corporate social responsibility, arms, that's essentially what they have built here. This is the fight of our time. AI is not inevitable. The way it develops is not inevitable. And we do not have to take these companies at their word that they know best how to govern this technology. We should have bigger imaginations about what's possible. And if anything, this should give us more energy and motivation to fix what's broken about our democracy than to just sit back and let billionaires control our future.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Do you ever talk to Sam Altman anymore?

[Katherine Bracey]

He doesn't return my calls.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Well, thanks for talking to us.

[Katherine Bracey]

I'm happy to. Anytime.

[Sean Rameshborn]

Kathryn Bracey, she loves tech, but she also wants it to work better for the people. She wrote a book all about her position. It's called World How Venture Capital Is Cannibalizing the Economy. We reached out to OpenAI to ask what they thought about Catherine's argument that they're openly breaking California nonprofit law, but we didn't hear back yet. Should we ask Chat? Let me ask Chat. That's an idea. Okay, here we go. Is OpenAI violating California nonprofit law? It's not settled. There are active allegations and legal challenges, but no court has definitively ruled that OpenAI is violating California's nonprofit law. Huh. Danielle Hewitt produced today. Jolie Myers edited Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore mixed. Andrea Lopez Crusabo was on the fact check. I'm Sean Ramsborom, and this is today, explained. Sam.