Comment by manquer

Stock compensation is not cash out, it just dilutes the other shareholders, so current cash flow should not have anything do to the amount of stock issued[1]

While there is some flexibility in how options are issued and accounted for (see FASB - FAS 123), typically industry uses something like a 4 year vesting with 1 year cliffs.

Every accounting firm and company is different, most would normally account for it for entire period upfront the value could change when it is vests, and exercised.

So even if you want to compare it to revenue, then it should be bare minimum with the revenue generated during the entire period say 4 years plus the valuation of the IP created during the tenure of the options.

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[1] Unless the company starts buying back options/stock from employees from its cash reserves, then it is different.

Even secondary sales that OpenAI is being reported to be facilitating for staff worth $6.6Billion has no bearing on its own financials directly, i.e. one third party(new investor) is buying from another third party(employee), company is only facilitating the sales for morale, retention and other HR reasons.

There is secondary impact, as in theory that could be shares the company is selling directly to new investor instead and keeping the cash itself, but it is not spending any existing cash it already has or generating, just forgoing some of the new funds.