When did OpenAI become a for-profit company?

2019, per Wikipedia

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2019: Transition to for-profit
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In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from non-profit to "capped" for-profit, with the profit capped at 100 times any investment.[23] According to OpenAI, the capped-profit model allows OpenAI LP to legally attract investment from venture funds, and in addition, to grant employees stakes in the company, the goal being that they can say "I'm going to OpenAI, but in the long term it's not going to be disadvantageous to us as a family."[24] Many top researchers work for Google Brain, DeepMind, or Facebook, which offer stock options that a nonprofit would be unable to.[25] Prior to the transition, public disclosure of the compensation of top employees at OpenAI was legally required.[26]

The company then distributed equity to its employees and partnered with Microsoft and Matthew Brown Companies,[27] who announced an investment package of $1 billion into the company. OpenAI also announced its intention to commercially license its technologies.[28] OpenAI plans to spend the $1 billion "within five years, and possibly much faster".[29] Altman has stated that even a billion dollars may turn out to be insufficient, and that the lab may ultimately need "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" to achieve artificial general intelligence.[30]

The transition from a nonprofit to a capped-profit company was viewed with skepticism by Oren Etzioni of the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI, who agreed that wooing top researchers to a nonprofit is difficult, but stated "I disagree with the notion that a nonprofit can't compete" and pointed to successful low-budget projects by OpenAI and others. "If bigger and better funded was always better, then IBM would still be number one."

The nonprofit, OpenAI Inc., is the sole controlling shareholder of OpenAI LP. OpenAI LP, despite being a for-profit company, retains a formal fiduciary responsibility to OpenAI Inc.'s nonprofit charter. A majority of OpenAI Inc.'s board is barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI LP.[24] In addition, minority members with a stake in OpenAI LP are barred from certain votes due to conflict of interest.[25] Some researchers have argued that OpenAI LP's switch to for-profit status is inconsistent with OpenAI's claims to be "democratizing" AI.[31] A journalist at Vice News wrote that "generally, we've never been able to rely on venture capitalists to better humanity".

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I totally understand your frustration with OpenAI's transition from a non-profit organization to a for-profit company. It can feel like the organization played its initial donors for fools, promising to prioritize the public good and freely share its patents, only to later turn around and focus on generating revenue for its investors.

While it's true that becoming a for-profit company can help OpenAI raise more capital and attract more talent, it's hard not to be cynical about the decision. After all, it's easy to imagine that the lure of big profits might start to influence the types of projects the company chooses to pursue, or the way it prioritizes its research.

That being said, it's important to acknowledge that OpenAI is still doing important work that has the potential to benefit society in significant ways. Its mission to create advanced AI technologies remains unchanged, even if the way it goes about achieving that mission has shifted. Whether or not that's a good thing is up for debate, but it's clear that OpenAI is still a major player in the world of AI research and development.

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Government involvement probably

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At this point they are almost like a subsidiary of Microsoft. Just a few months ago they were talking about slow rolling GPT4 to make sure they do it right and safely. But once Microsoft gave them $10 Billion to kick off the AI arms race, GPT4 comes out about a month later.