Median OpenAI engineer's stock grant averages $2M over 4 years, Anthropic $800K
FinanceYF5 · x · 2026-10-13
FinanceYF5 supplements its startup-equity return chart with median-engineer grant data, noting earlier $250K-based math understated top AI labs:
- Equity stakes scale down with valuation: < $100M startups grant 0.20%; $100–500M: 0.10%; $500M–1B: 0.05%; private companies > $1B: $200K total over 4 years
- Public-company RSUs: Nvidia $80K/yr, Palantir $40K/yr (5-year vest)
- OpenAI employees average $2M in equity over four years; Anthropic $800K
The chart shows what a median engineer's late-2022 grant is worth by Oct 2026: Cursor $82M (725x), Anthropic $76M (95x), OpenAI $40M (20x) — versus just 2.2x for the S&P 500 over the same period.
Related event: AI Startups Deliver Massive Equity Returns, Data Shows(2 posts)→
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