Sam Altman's identity verification company reportedly faces layoffs, weak revenue

Tools for Humanity is moving to trim its workforce just as Sam Altman’s other flagship company heads toward the public markets, a contrast that underscores how uneven the Altman ecosystem has become. The biometric startup behind World’s iris-scanning Orb and World ID has struggled to prove that its “proof of human” pitch can translate into steady revenue and broad public acceptance.

Founded in 2019 by Alex Blania and Sam Altman and based in San Francisco and Munich, Tools for Humanity has presented itself as a sizable operation, with more than 500 scientists, engineers, creatives, economists and other staff. World says its system is already used by millions of people across 160 countries, and describes World ID as a secure, privacy-preserving way to digitally prove that someone is a unique human. The business problem is that scale has not yet matched profitability, leaving the company vulnerable to pressure even as it promotes a global identity network.

The layoffs land at a delicate moment for Altman. OpenAI has confidentially filed for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a step CNBC said could put it on track for one of the largest public-market debuts in history. CNBC also reported OpenAI’s latest post-money valuation at $852 billion and said the company was preparing a tender offer for employees. That valuation only heightens the contrast with Tools for Humanity, which is being forced to shrink while its sister venture moves closer to the market spotlight.

Tools for Humanity and the broader World project have also faced persistent regulatory resistance over the handling of biometric data. Spain’s data protection agency, the AEPD, ordered a temporary halt to Worldcoin’s processing of personal data on March 6, 2024 after complaints involving insufficient information, the collection of minors’ data and concerns that consent could not be withdrawn. In Germany, Bavaria’s data protection authority later ordered the Worldcoin Foundation to erase certain iris codes and said the company had stored iris codes as plain text, a damaging finding for a project built on trust in sensitive identity verification.

The staffing cuts also follow signs of internal strain. In February 2026, Business Insider reported that two C-suite executives and several senior staff had left Tools for Humanity. For a company trying to sell biometric identity as a privacy-first utility, the combination of layoffs, departures and regulatory skepticism points to a more basic test: whether enough people and institutions are willing to trust iris scans as the price of proving they are human.