Sam Altman's other startup cuts staff

Tools for Humanity, the identity-verification company co-founded and chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is reportedly conducting layoffs, according to a Business Insider report cited by TechCrunch. Business Insider reported that employees were notified of the cuts in an internal email from the company's HR team on Monday. TechCrunch said it has reached out to Tools for Humanity to confirm the reductions, so the company has not publicly verified their scope.

Tools for Humanity is best known for World, formerly Worldcoin, and its eye-scanning Orb. The silver device captures a person's iris scan to issue a World ID, which the company pitches as a way to prove someone is a real human rather than a bot and to support trading of its Worldcoin cryptocurrency. Altman is a co-founder and chairman. The startup raised money at a roughly $2.5 billion valuation from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital, and has signed U.S. partners such as Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign.

The reported downsizing, attributed to weak revenue, lands the same week OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO, drawing a sharp contrast between Altman's flagship lab and his struggling side venture. World's central thesis, verifying human identity in a world increasingly crowded with AI agents, is tied directly to the rise of generative AI, but the reporting suggests it has not yet translated into durable revenue.

Tools for Humanity has faced regulatory and privacy scrutiny abroad. TechCrunch noted that Kenya banned World from operating over privacy and financial concerns, and that South Korea fined the company $830,000 for allegedly violating local privacy law.

Whether Tools for Humanity confirms the layoffs and discloses their size, and whether the cuts signal a broader strategy shift for World's hardware-heavy, identity-first model as OpenAI moves toward public markets.