The world’s most valuable private company…
August 26, 2025
Yes, you’ve guessed it, its OpenAI
Did you see the many news stories on the employee stock sale at OpenAI that could value the company at $500bn, higher than SpaceX?
OpenAI eyes $500 billion valuation in potential employee share sale, source says Reuters.
There is much to take away from this story. In no particular order:
- It can no longer be assumed that the most valuable companies in the world are always going to be listed. That has a knock on about how discounts (or maybe in the future premia) could be applied when using comparable quoted company data.
- Trading in grey markets such as stock sales by employees is producing much higher volumes of useful and valuable data points, especially around uninfluential minority share valuations.
- AI really is the biggest game in town:
- We can no longer ignore the AI issue in valuations. Every company in the world will have to have a strategy in relation to AI and that, in turn, will impact on value .
- With the integration of AI into life we will have to look much harder at how the risks, as well as the opportunities, are managed. This means looking at how the risks can be insured
- There is going to have to be a serious discussion about where and when AI can be used in the valuations industry. In the US the view is that using it for research, as long as you check the sources, is now acceptable. In the UK both HMRC and the Courts are not yet happy for it to be adopted.
There may be other issues that also need to be considered.
The job of a company and share valuer has developed more layers of complexity and whilst some might say automation and AI could increase efficiency, I still think that this efficiency will be accompanied by an even greater need for a human (working for a company with appropriate PI cover) to be in and on valuation reports.
What do you think? Is there anything emerging in AI LegalTech that you think could inform this discussion? If so, we would love to hear your views.
