Minmo Gahng

Assistant Professor of Finance

Minmo Gahng, assistant professor of finance at Cornell University, says a potential OpenAI IPO would combine a few rare elements.

Gahng says:

“OpenAI is one of the rare private companies whose products are already used daily by hundreds of millions of users. That kind of household-name recognition could generate substantial retail demand and support a richer valuation than fundamentals alone would justify.

“But the same growth story requires enormous capital spending. Competition from Anthropic, Google, Meta, and others makes the path to durable positive cash flow uncertain.

“The deeper tension is governance. OpenAI’s for-profit arm is a Delaware public benefit corporation controlled by a nonprofit foundation, so its directors must balance shareholder returns against the broader nonprofit mission. Public-market investors may tolerate that structure if returns are strong, but pressure to prioritize shareholder value will rise sharply if the stock disappoints.”