OpenAI has been on a hiring spree. Will it lead to an acquiring spree?
On Monday, the company reportedly poached Google’s senior director of corporate development Albert Lee. The executive led corporate development for Google Cloud and DeepMind for more than 14 years, and oversaw dozens of top acquisitions worth more than $50 billion in value, per his LinkedIn profile.
Lee will lead corporate development at OpenAI, and OpenAI is hoping he will be “a senior leader with broad visibility across the company who is empowered to move quickly,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Reuters.
Monday’s announcement comes on the heels of two more major recruitments to the business side of OpenAI that were announced this month.
Just last week, OpenAI announced that Slack CEO Denise Dresser would be joining the company as its new chief revenue officer. The week prior to that, Torben Severson, chief of staff to CEO of Amazon’s global retail operations, announced that he had joined OpenAI as vice president and head of global business development.
Could the fact that OpenAI went for a top corporate development executive at competitor Google perhaps signal that the company will have a 2026 full of acquisitions? Though only time will tell if that will be for sure be the case, the signs are already pointing towards steadily accelerating dealmaking at the company.
2025 has already been an unusually active year for acquisitions and dealmaking for OpenAI. The company has counted at least five major acquisitions in this year alone, and that’s not counting the acqui-hires. Earlier this month, the company agreed to acquire the startup Neptune, whose product offerings help AI companies with training models. In October OpenAI acquired both Software Applications Incorporated, and personal investing startup Roi. In September, OpenAI’s web of acquisitions got a hold of software experimentation company Statsig in a $1.1 billion deal, and in May the company bought former Apple chief designer Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io in a $6.4 billion deal.
And then there are all the strategic partnerships that OpenAI counted this year, including an unprecedented $100 billion investment from Nvidia (that it turns out has not yet been fully finalized). The company’s web of dealmaking has been so tightly woven this year that it sparked widespread worries of circular dealmaking and of catastrophic consequences if indeed a feared AI bubble burst.
Also potentially on the docket for the new year is a flashy OpenAI initial public offering. The company finalized its recapitalization process end of October, and officially became a for-profit corporation. Shortly after, a Reuters report said that OpenAI was planning an IPO that could be valued up to $1 trillion that could come as early as the second half of 2026.
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