OpenAI doubles down on enterprise sales with SpaceX veteran hire ahead of IPO

OpenAI is making a clear bet that enterprise sales, not just API consumption, will drive its next phase of growth. The company has hired Brian McCarthy from SpaceX as its vice president of worldwide sales, a newly created role reporting to chief revenue officer Dali Rajic. McCarthy previously served as president of global revenue at SpaceX, joining through its acquisition of Cursor, and has led enterprise sales teams at Rubrik, ThoughtSpot, AppDynamics, and Qlik.

The sales leadership team taking shape

McCarthy is the first major hire by Dali Rajic, who joined OpenAI as CRO on August 24. The two previously worked together at AppDynamics from 2017-2018, where Rajic was CRO and McCarthy was VP of sales, during AppDynamics’ pre-IPO preparations before Cisco’s acquisition. Rajic has also recruited two Snowflake executives, Mark Fleming and Jaime Patel, to bolster enterprise sales. This is not a single hire; it’s the beginning of a global sales organization.

Why this matters for OpenAI enterprise sales

OpenAI’s push into enterprise adoption of frontier models has been a key battleground with Anthropic. Despite Anthropic’s strong adoption of Claude Code, OpenAI has gained ground: its latest Astra model eclipsed Anthropic’s Fable in enterprise spend, according to data from Ramp. Scaling enterprise sales is also critical for revenue diversification ahead of a potential IPO, expected next year.

For AI builders and enterprise teams, this signals that OpenAI is investing in direct sales relationships, not just self-serve API access. If you’re evaluating OpenAI for production workloads, expect more structured enterprise agreements, dedicated account teams, and international support. The hire also suggests OpenAI is preparing for larger, longer-term contracts that require sales engineering and global field operations.

What remains uncertain

The hire itself is a signal of intent, not a guarantee of execution. Building a global enterprise sales organization takes time, and OpenAI is competing against Anthropic’s established enterprise relationships and products like Claude Code. The IPO timeline is still speculative, and overseas expansion will require navigating regulatory and data residency challenges. The reported enterprise spend data from Ramp is one data point, not a comprehensive market share picture.

For now, the takeaway is clear: OpenAI is treating enterprise sales as a strategic priority, and the leadership team being assembled has deep experience scaling enterprise software companies. That should matter to any builder betting on OpenAI for long-term production use.