# A quote from John Gruber
Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/5/john-gruber/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/5/john-gruber/)
5th May 2026
> So it’s well known that Y Combinator owns*some*stake in OpenAI\. But how big is that stake? This seems like devilishly difficult information to obtain\. I asked around and a little birdie who knows several OpenAI investors came back with an answer: Y Combinator owns about 0\.6 percent of OpenAI\. At OpenAI’s current[$852 billion valuation](https://openai.com/index/accelerating-the-next-phase-ai/), that’s worth over $5 billion\.
—[John Gruber](https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/y_combinators_stake_in_openai),Y Combinator’s Stake in OpenAI
Posted[5th May 2026](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/5/)at 12:46 am
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This is a**quotation**collected by Simon Willison, posted on[5th May 2026](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/5/)\.
[john\-gruber40](https://simonwillison.net/tags/john-gruber/)[y\-combinator59](https://simonwillison.net/tags/y-combinator/)[ai2008](https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai/)[openai417](https://simonwillison.net/tags/openai/)
MIT Technology Review reports on Sam Altman's proposal to give Americans a 5% equity stake in OpenAI, valued at about $320 per household, as compensation for AI using human-generated work and as a safety net against labor market disruption.