OpenAI is accelerating its pace: revenue has reached $40 billion, but staff turnover casts a shadow over the IPO.
OpenAI is demonstrating impressive financial momentum: the company's annual recurring revenue (ARR) has surpassed the $40 billion mark. This figure has doubled compared to the end of 2025, strengthening the position of those advocating for a public market debut. However, amid these successes, key executives are leaving the company, adding uncertainty ahead of a potential IPO.
What's behind the record growth?
The main drivers of this explosive growth are three areas. First, the ChatGPT subscriber base continues to expand. Second, sales of developer tools for coding are growing rapidly. Third, a relatively young advertising business is making a tangible contribution, already generating significant cash flow.
According to my data, revenue in July grew by more than 20% compared to June. This is confirmed by internal reporting: July brought in more revenue than the entire second quarter. Notably, this result was achieved amid a price reduction for client services that took place in July. Contrary to skeptics' expectations, the cheaper products not only failed to cause a drop in revenue but also attracted new corporate customers.
AI agents provided additional momentum. Products like Codex, designed for programmers, and ChatGPT Work, aimed at office teams, are encouraging clients to upgrade to more expensive tiers. This is a classic upselling strategy that works particularly effectively amid growing demand for automation.
The company's CFO previously forecast that revenue would exceed $20 billion by the end of 2025. Now, management is setting a more ambitious goal: to derive half of its revenue from corporate clients by the end of this year.
Personnel changes: a warning sign?
However, not everything is smooth sailing. In the coming weeks, the company will lose its Chief Revenue Officer, Denise Dresser, who has been at OpenAI for only about eight months, having joined from Slack. Her duties will be partially transferred to Dali Rajic, who previously led the cybersecurity company Wiz.
This is not the first loss in leadership. Earlier, the company lost its Chief Operating Officer, Brad Lightcap, and a month ago, Fidji Simo left for health reasons. In recent months, OpenAI has also lost its head of ethics, its head of the safety division, and its former chief strategy officer. To stabilize the situation, President Greg Brockman has taken on some management functions.
Preparation for the stock exchange is in full swing: an application for an initial public offering (IPO) has been filed in confidential mode, and the company recently bought back $7 billion worth of employee shares from its own funds. Competitor Anthropic plans to go public as early as October with a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. OpenAI's stock price will largely depend on whether revenue growth can offset the concerning talent turnover.
My view: Doubling ARR to $40 billion is undeniably a strong signal for the market, but instability in key commercial and operational roles is a red flag for investors. Ahead of an IPO, the stability of the management team matters just as much as financial metrics. OpenAI needs to demonstrate that business growth does not depend on a few key figures; otherwise, the market may factor a significant discount for management risk into its valuation.