OpenAI confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering on Monday, June 8, 2026, the same day Sam Altman’s other company, Tools for Humanity, told staff it was laying off employees. The two announcements landed hours apart and set the AI lab Altman runs as chief executive next to a $2.5 billion biometric-identity project he co-founded and chairs.
Tools for Humanity, the San Francisco and Munich-based startup behind the iris-scanning Orb, has been cutting roles according to an internal email viewed by Business Insider. TechCrunch has reached out to the company for confirmation. OpenAI, by contrast, told the public about its confidential submission itself, in a four-paragraph post on its own site.
What the Layoff Email Actually Said
The email went out Monday from Tools for Humanity’s people team, the same day OpenAI filed its S-1. It framed the cuts as a strategic reset, the kind of phrasing a company uses when it is reorganizing, not when it is in financial distress. A subsequent report on the same email laid out the company’s next step: a Tuesday town hall meeting where staff would hear the details.
As we enter the next step of our company strategy and operating priorities, we have made the hard decision to make changes to some roles and teams across the company.
The company did not say in the email how many jobs were affected. Tools for Humanity employs more than 500 people, according to its own website, and the email went to staffers across the company. Business Insider, which first reported the cuts, also did not have a number. A Tuesday town hall was framed as the moment that gap would close.
That is the most that is on the public record. The phrasing in the email, the “next step of company strategy” line, signals a reorganization rather than a financial emergency, but the meeting is where the staff will see the actual shape of it.
The Orb Has a Money Problem
The Orb is Tools for Humanity’s flagship product: a silver, volleyball-sized sphere that scans a person’s irises to confirm they are a unique human and not an AI bot. Successful scans earn the participant Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency distributed by the Cayman Island-based World Foundation. The pitch is that, in a world of cheap synthetic media, a one-person-one-ID credential has real value. The company pitches it as “proof of humanity” for the AI era.
The reality is that the value has been hard to convert into recurring revenue. Business Insider’s report said Tools for Humanity “has struggled to show how its iris-scanning Orb can generate revenue” despite millions of sign-ups and a $2.5 billion valuation.
Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign have all signed on to use the World ID layer for human-only flows. The deals lend credibility but have not moved the company’s bottom line in any disclosed way. In the U.S., Tools for Humanity has also partnered with Razer for human-verified gaming and with Match Group, Tinder’s parent. None of those names has disclosed payments, contract length, or scale. Without a working consumer business or a paying enterprise tier, the strategic reset the email described is the company’s bid to find one before its runway does.
Layoffs at this stage are usually about extending that runway, the standard move when a venture-backed company is buying time to find a working model. The framing in the email, the town hall, and the timing all point in the same direction. Tuesday is when the staff will see the actual shape of that reorganization. The leadership team will see whether the cuts land as a reset or a retreat.
$2.5 Billion in Backing, Still No Working Model
Tools for Humanity was founded in 2019 by Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern. Altman is chairman; Blania is chief executive. The company has raised roughly $240 million to date, with Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Khosla Ventures as the most-cited backers, per PitchBook data cited by Business Insider.
The most recent reported valuation is $2.5 billion, a figure that has held across multiple funding rounds. Tools for Humanity’s own 2025 year-end review claims the World network grew to nearly 38 million users in 2025, with a verified-human sign-up rate of one every 3.6 seconds by the company’s own count. Wikipedia, citing earlier numbers, put the verified count at 15 million out of 33 million app users as of September 2025. Whichever figure is closer to current, the gap between registered users and recurring revenue is the story the layoffs are trying to address.
- $2.5 billion: most recent reported valuation
- 500+: Tools for Humanity employees, per the company’s own website
- ~$240 million: raised to date, per PitchBook data cited by Business Insider
- ~15 million verified users / ~33 million app users as of September 2025 (Wikipedia)
- 3 U.S. enterprise partners named publicly: Tinder, Zoom, Docusign
World was rebranded from Worldcoin in October 2024, the same year it launched a Visa debit-card partnership and switched its data storage to a multi-party-computation system meant to satisfy European privacy regulators. None of those moves changed the core problem: the network is large, the user base is mostly passive, and the token is a tradable asset, not a revenue line for the company that built the hardware.
Regulators in Three Continents Have Found the Orb
The layoffs land on a company that has spent three years fighting privacy regulators on several fronts. Tools for Humanity’s biometric offer model, the $50-in-Worldcoin pitch that built much of its user base, is the same model that has run into bans, fines, and forced data deletions in at least seven jurisdictions. The most consequential ruling to date came from the High Court of Kenya on May 5, 2025, when Justice Roselyne Aburili declared Worldcoin’s 2023 collection of biometric data in the country unlawful under the Data Protection Act, 2019. The court ordered the project to delete all facial and iris scans within seven days under the supervision of the Data Commissioner.
South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission followed with a 1.1 billion won fine, roughly $830,000, split between the Worldcoin Foundation and Tools for Humanity itself. The PIPC found the company had not adequately informed Korean users about where their data was being transferred, had not offered a Korean translation of the consent form before March 22, and had not given users a way to request deletion of their iris data.
The PIPC’s investigation, which identified weaknesses in the original disclosures provided by TFH when it initially launched in South Korea and which have since been remedied, effectively concludes that TFH’s operations, including the use of the orb for humanness verification, are in compliance with South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act.
The PIPC did not ban Worldcoin in South Korea, and TFH said it welcomed the decision. Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority, the ANPD, ordered Tools for Humanity to stop paying residents for iris scans. Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, and Bavaria have all opened investigations, imposed suspensions, or both.
In Kenya, India, and Hong Kong, sign-up agents recruited people with offers of the equivalent of $50 in Worldcoin in exchange for their biometric data. The same offer model produced the regulatory cascade in at least seven jurisdictions on three continents. Tools for Humanity’s “vague, suspicious ambitions,” as TechCrunch put it, were enough to raise money at a $2.5 billion valuation. They have not been enough to satisfy every privacy authority that has looked at the model.
| Jurisdiction | Action | Date |
|---|---|---|
| South Korea | $830,000 PIPC fine; no ban, must remedy | 2025 (investigation from Feb 2023) |
| Kenya | Operations banned; data deletion within 7 days | May 5, 2025 |
| Brazil | ANPD ordered firm to stop paying residents for iris scans | 2025 |
| Philippines | Cease-and-desist; halts iris data collection | October 2025 |
| Spain | Three-month suspension; biometric data blocked | March 6, 2024 |
| Portugal | Temporary order to halt data collection | March 26, 2024 |
| Hong Kong | Warrants executed; data-handling violations found | January-May 2024 |
OpenAI’s S-1, Filed Quietly on Purpose
OpenAI made the filing announcement itself, in a four-paragraph post on its own site dated June 8, 2026. The post said the company had recently submitted a confidential S-1 to the SEC and had not yet decided on timing. The post was made under Rule 135 of the Securities Act, the same safe harbor companies use to acknowledge a filing without it being treated as an offer to sell.
OpenAI added that “it may be a while” before any public offering, since the company is weighing “things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company.” A confidential submission lets OpenAI share its financials with regulators privately, get their feedback, and revise the document before a public version is filed. The voluntary disclosure, OpenAI wrote, was a hedge against the filing leaking. The deal comes after a separate Microsoft-OpenAI deal at a $500 billion valuation in late 2025, and weeks after a jury in Oakland dismissed Elon Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI on statute-of-limitations grounds.
OpenAI is moving toward the public markets, a moment of validation for the AI lab. Tools for Humanity is reorganizing privately, with the same kind of email any number of late-stage startups have sent in the past 18 months. The two companies share a chairman and a base of investors that includes Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Khosla Ventures.
OpenAI’s June 8 announcement said the company “expects it to leak” so it is announcing the filing itself. Tools for Humanity’s June 8 email said the company is making “changes to some roles and teams.” OpenAI chose to disclose the S-1 itself. Tools for Humanity chose to tell staff about cuts first. The Tuesday town hall is the next fixed point on Tools for Humanity’s calendar.
The internal email viewed by Business Insider is the only public record of the cuts so far. Tools for Humanity has not commented publicly about the reorganization.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Tools for Humanity, and what does the Orb do?
Tools for Humanity is the San Francisco and Munich-based company that builds the Orb, a silver iris-scanning device that confirms a person is a unique human and issues them a “World ID.” Successful scans earn participants Worldcoin (WLD) tokens distributed by the Cayman Island-based World Foundation. The company was founded in 2019 by Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern, and Altman is chairman.
Why is Tools for Humanity laying off employees?
The company told staff in an internal email that the cuts are tied to its “next step of company strategy and operating priorities.” Business Insider reports the move is part of a push to address the fact that the Orb business has yet to show how it generates recurring revenue, despite a $2.5 billion valuation and millions of sign-ups. A Tuesday town hall meeting is where further details are expected to be shared.
What did OpenAI file with the SEC, and when will the IPO happen?
OpenAI said it submitted a confidential S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the registration document companies file before going public. A confidential filing lets the company share financials with regulators privately before publishing them. OpenAI’s own post said it has not decided on timing and that “it may be a while,” since the company wants to keep open the option of staying private.
What regulatory problems has Tools for Humanity faced?
Kenya’s High Court ruled on May 5, 2025, that the company’s 2023 data collection in the country was unlawful and ordered the deletion of all iris scans within seven days. South Korea’s PIPC fined Tools for Humanity and the Worldcoin Foundation a combined 1.1 billion won, or about $830,000. Brazil’s data protection authority ordered the firm to stop paying residents for iris scans, and the Philippines’ privacy regulator issued a cease-and-desist in October 2025. Spain, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, and Bavaria have all opened investigations or imposed suspensions.
How is Sam Altman’s role at OpenAI connected to Tools for Humanity?
Altman is chief executive of OpenAI and co-founder and chairman of Tools for Humanity. He co-founded the company in 2019 with Alex Blania, who is now the chief executive, and Max Novendstern. The two firms share a chairman and a base of investors that includes Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Khosla Ventures.
