OpenAI employees selling company shares to buy houses in US:Average home prices in San Francisco rise to ₹17 crore

A luxurious flat in San Francisco’s Duboce Triangle area was priced at approximately $30 million or ₹2,864 crore. The interesting thing was that the seller was also willing to accept shares of OpenAI or Anthropic instead of cash. This is not an isolated incident, but rather the impact of money coming from AI, which is changing the face of the entire city. According to real estate firm Redfin, the average price of homes in the city reached a record $17.6 lakh (₹16.8 crore) in May, while the average across America is merely around $4 lakh (₹3.8 crore). Home prices in the city increased by 19% in March, and the momentum continued with over 14% growth in April-May. According to Redfin’s Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather, this surge is directly linked to the wealth of AI company employees. Last year in October, over 600 current and former employees of OpenAI sold shares worth a total of 63,000 crore, meaning an average of 105 crore per person. Employees at Anthropic were also permitted to sell shares worth approximately 57,000 crore. Agents say that bidding wars have now become commonplace, with houses often selling for millions of dollars above the asking price. Cash payment deals are also rapidly increasing, especially in expensive areas. However, not everyone is part of this boom. According to University of Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti, this is still the early phase of the AI boom. Layoffs happening at companies like Meta could also put brakes on this momentum. He also states that most of the earnings from the upcoming stock market listings of OpenAI and Anthropic will go not to employees, but to investors spread across the world. Meanwhile, the story of two families in the city shows another side of this transformation. One family, in which one member works at OpenAI, was able to buy a house in their own neighborhood by selling shares. On the other hand, another non-tech family was forced to leave the city and move to the outskirts.
Nevertheless, the flat in Duboce Triangle finally sold for $3.2 million (₹30.5 crore), which was ₹1.9 crore more than the asking price. Whether AI shares were also included in this deal has been kept confidential. AI Money is Pushing Everyone Out of the City The head of the family that had to leave the city holds a senior government position in San Francisco itself, yet they could not buy a house in the city. Now they live in a rented house in the suburbs, from where they have to travel a long distance daily. The mother of the family says, ‘If there was any possibility of living in the city, we would never have left. It feels bad to see that AI money is pushing everyone else out.’