OpenAI is bringing in the team behind Convogo, an AI startup that built software for evaluating executives, as part of its broader cloud strategy. Founder Matt Cooper announced the news on LinkedIn. Convogo's software used AI to automatically analyze interviews, surveys, and psychometric tests.

According to OpenAI (via Techcrunch), the acquisition is about the people, not the product. The three founders, Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett, will help drive OpenAI's AI cloud efforts. The deal was settled entirely in shares, though the amount remains undisclosed. Convogo's software is being shut down.

The founding team's strong product focus likely made them attractive. Cooper writes that the key to closing the gap between AI's potential and its actual use lies in well-designed, purpose-driven applications, a "usage gap" narrative that Microsoft and OpenAI have both pushed before.

The acquisition also fits OpenAI's strategy of controlling the entire value chain, from infrastructure to models to the end product. This push likely reflects how differentiating on model capabilities alone is getting harder as performance converges and cheaper open-source alternatives catch up.

Last fall, OpenAI reportedly set aside a stock pool for employees worth about ten percent of the company. Based on the $500 billion valuation from October 2024, that comes to around $50 billion, according to The Information, citing two people familiar with the plans.

OpenAI has also already issued $80 billion in allocated shares. Combined with the new stock pool, employees now own about 26 percent of the company. Meanwhile, OpenAI is in early talks with investors about a new funding round worth roughly $750 billion.

A previous analysis found that OpenAI pays its employees more than any tech startup in history, with stock-based compensation averaging about $1.5 million per employee. That level of spending complicates the path to profitability: the company is targeting around $20 billion in ARR. But on top of hefty payroll, development costs, and day-to-day operations, OpenAI faces about $1.4 trillion in data center commitments over the next eight years.