capital · May 21, 2026
Sam Altman Offers $2 Million in OpenAI Tokens to Each YC Spring 2026 Startup for Equity
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Sam Altman offered $2 million worth of OpenAI API tokens to each of the 169 startups in Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch in exchange for equity via SAFE notes. The offer was announced at a YC event on May 20, 2026. Tom Blomfield noted OpenAI is willing to exchange $800 million of compute for approximately 2% equity across the batch. Altman described the initiative as an investment in tokenmaxxing startups. This follows OpenAI's recent $122 billion funding round at $852 billion valuation.
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