OpenAI’s ‘Friction’ email can put workplace woes in Sam Altman’s inbox

Employees at OpenAI have a little-known way to cut through the bureaucracy that can emerge as a company grows: email a special internal address labelled “friction.”

Employees can send complaints about workplace bottlenecks and organisational problems to friction@openai.com, triggering a process that can ultimately bring the issue to the attention of CEO Sam Altman or board chairman Greg Brockman, according to Fortune.

What happens when employees email ‘friction’?

The process is designed to identify problems that are slowing employees down — from malfunctioning technical systems and inefficient procedures to seemingly mundane office issues.

OpenAI’s leadership team reportedly reviews the messages and decides which problems require action. If an issue is considered significant enough, senior leaders can step in to ensure it is resolved.

A former OpenAI employee described the system to Fortune as a way for virtually anyone at the company to raise a problem directly with senior leadership.

Issues submitted through the system

The news outlet reported that complaints about crowded parking lots led OpenAI to test a system that prioritised parking spaces for employees with longer commutes.

The idea is to prevent relatively small problems from accumulating and eventually becoming larger organisational obstacles.

Why the system became more important

The “friction” system existed at OpenAI before, but it gained momentum after Fidji Simo joined the company as CEO of Applications in late 2025.

During a three-month listening tour, Simo found that employees were increasingly concerned about maintaining speed as OpenAI expanded.

“Companies rarely become bureaucratic all of a sudden,” Simo told Fortune, explaining that bureaucracy can develop through a series of small frustrations, unnecessary meetings and additional approvals.

She subsequently formalised the process, assigning OpenAI executive Irina Kofman to monitor the inbox and ensure selected problems were addressed.

The company also began sharing monthly updates on Slack about progress on issues raised through the system.

Not everyone sees it as a solution

While some employees view “friction” as an effective way to get leadership to address problems, others say it can create new inefficiencies.

A former OpenAI team leader told Fortune that they had received dozens of such emails and found some of them highly disruptive.

The concern is that an employee reporting a problem may see it as urgent, while the team responsible for fixing it may already be overloaded with other work.