Sam Altman
Altman in 2019
Born
Samuel Harris Altman

(1985-04-22) April 22, 1985
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
EducationStanford University (dropped out)
Known forLoopt, Y Combinator, OpenAI
TitleCEO of OpenAI
SpouseOliver Mulherin
Websiteblog.samaltman.com

Samuel Harris Altman (/ˈɔːltmən/; AWLT-mən; born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and investor best known as the CEO of OpenAI since 2019 (he was briefly fired and reinstated in November 2023).[1] He is one of the leading figures of the AI boom,[2][3][4] He dropped out of university after studying for two years and founded Loopt, a mobile social networking service, raising more than $30 million in venture capital. In 2011 Altman joined Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, and was its president from 2014 to 2019.[5]

Early life and education

Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois,[6][7] into a Jewish family,[8] and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother is a dermatologist, while his father was a real estate broker. Altman is the eldest of four siblings—brothers Jack and Max, and sister Annie.[9] At the age of eight he received his first computer, an Apple Macintosh.[10] He attended John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, Missouri. In 2005, after two years at Stanford University studying computer science, he dropped out without earning a bachelor's degree.[11][12]

Career

Early career

In 2005, at the age of 19,[13] Altman co-founded Loopt,[14] a location-based social networking mobile application. As CEO, Altman raised more than $30 million in venture capital for the company; however, Loopt failed to gain traction with enough users. In March 2012, it was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.[15] The following month, Altman co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother, Jack Altman.[16][17]

Altman became a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that invests in a wide range of startups, in 2011, initially working there on a part-time basis.[18] In February 2014, Altman was named president of Y Combinator by its co-founder, Paul Graham.[19] In a 2014 blog post, Altman said that the total valuation of Y Combinator companies had surpassed $65 billion, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Zenefits, and Stripe.[20] In September 2016, Altman announced his expanded role as president of YC Group, which included Y Combinator and other units.[21] Altman said that he hoped to expand Y Combinator to fund 1,000 new companies per year. He also tried to expand the types of companies funded by YC, especially "hard technology" companies.[22] In October 2015, Altman announced YC Continuity, a $700 million equity fund investing in YC companies as they matured.[23] A week earlier, Altman had introduced Y Combinator Research, a non-profit research lab, and donated $10 million to fund it.[24] YC Research has thus far announced research on basic income, the future of computing, education, and building new cities.[25] In March 2019, YC announced Altman's transition from the president of the company to a less hands-on role as Chairman of the Board, for him to focus on OpenAI.[26][27] This decision came shortly after YC announced it would be moving its headquarters to San Francisco.[28] As of early 2020, he was no longer affiliated with YC.[5] It was later reported that Altman was fired from YC, and had appointed himself Chairman without authorization.[29]

Altman co-founded Tools For Humanity in 2019,[30] a company which builds and distributes systems designed to scan people's eyes to provide authentication and verify proof of personhood to counter fraud. People who agree to have their eyes scanned are compensated with a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin.[31][32][33][34] Tools For Humanity describes its cryptocurrency as similar to universal basic income.[35][36]

Altman has several other investments. Including, "Humane", the world's first wearable computer powered by AI, "Retro Biosciences", a research company aiming to extend human life by 10 years, and "Helion Energy", an American fusion research company.[37][38]

OpenAI

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets with Demis Hassabis, CEO DeepMind, Dario Amodei, CEO Anthropic, and Sam Altman, CEO OpenAI. May 2023

OpenAI was initially funded by Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research. When OpenAI launched in 2015, it had raised $1 billion.[39] In March 2019, Sam Altman left Y Combinator to focus full-time on OpenAI as CEO.[40][1] By the summer of 2019, he had helped raise $1 billion from Microsoft.[41] Altman testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law on 16 May 2023 about issues of AI oversight.[42] After the success of ChatGPT, Altman made a world tour in May 2023, where he visited 22 countries and met multiple leaders and diplomats, including British prime minister Rishi Sunak, French president Emmanuel Macron, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, and Israeli president Isaac Herzog. He stood for a photo with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.[9]

Removal and reinstatement as CEO

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board, composed of researcher Helen Toner, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, AI governance advocate Tasha McCauley, and most prominently in the firing, OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskyver, announced that it had made the decision to remove Altman as CEO and Greg Brockman (both co-founders) from the board, citing that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications" in a public announcement on the OpenAI blog.[43] In response, Brockman resigned from his role as President of OpenAI.[44] The day after Altman was removed, The Verge reported that he and the board were in talks to bring him back.[45] On November 20, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Altman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.[46] Two days later, OpenAI employees published an open letter to the board threatening to leave OpenAI and join Microsoft, where all employees had been promised jobs, unless all board members step down and reinstate Altman as CEO. 505 employees initially signed, which later grew to over 700 out of 770 total employees.[47] This included Ilya Sutskyver, who had previously advocated for firing Altman, but now had apologized stating on Twitter, "I regret my participation in the board's actions." Late in the night on November 20th, OpenAI announced that they had reached an "agreement in principle" for Altman to return as CEO and Brockman to return as president.[48][49] The current board was to resign, other than D'Angelo, who was kept to represent the views of the previous board.

Other endeavors

For eight days in 2014, Altman was the CEO of Reddit after CEO Yishan Wong resigned.[50][51] He announced the return of Steve Huffman as CEO on July 10, 2015.[52]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Altman helped fund and create Project Covalence to help researchers rapidly launch clinical trials in partnership with TrialSpark, a clinical trial startup.[53] During the depositor run on Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Altman provided capital to multiple startups.[54] Altman invests in technology startups and nuclear energy companies. Some of his portfolio companies include Airbnb, Stripe and Retro Biosciences.[55] He is also chairman of the board for Helion, a company focused on developing nuclear fusion and Oklo, a nuclear fission company.[56]

Reception

Nancy Pelosi presenting Altman with the Ric Weiland Award in 2017

In 2017, Altman received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo in Canada for supporting companies through its Velocity entrepreneurship program.[57] The government of Indonesia issued the country's first "golden visa", a 10-year border pass, to Altman in September 2023.[58]

In 2023, Altman was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and CEO of the Year by Time magazine,[59][60] one of the "Best Young Entrepreneurs in Technology" by Businessweek in 2008,[61] and the top investor under 30 by Forbes magazine in 2015.[62] Altman was invited to attend the Bilderberg Meeting in 2016,[63] 2022,[64] and 2023.[65][66]

Walter Isaacson opined that Altman had "Musk-like intensity" which was instrumental in the founding of Open AI in partnership with Elon Musk.[67]

Personal life

Altman has been a vegetarian since childhood.[68]

He is gay[69][70][71] and came out at the age of 17[69] in high school,[70][71] where he spoke out after some students objected to a National Coming Out Day speaker.[69][72] He dated Loopt co-founder Nick Sivo for nine years; they broke up shortly after the company was acquired in 2012.[70]

Altman married engineer Oliver Mulherin in January 2024,[73] at their estate in Hawaii;[74] the pair live in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood and often spend weekends in Napa, California.[71][75]

He is a prepper;[7][76] Altman said in 2016: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israel Defense Forces, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to."[7]

Politics

Recode had reported that Altman might run for Governor of California in the 2018 election, which he did not enter. In 2018, Altman announced "The United Slate", a political project to improve housing and healthcare policy.[77] In 2019, Altman held a fundraiser at his house in San Francisco for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.[78] In May 2020, Altman donated $250,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, a super-PAC supporting Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.[79]

References

  1. 1 2 "OpenAI LP". openai.com. Archived from the original on March 11, 2019.
  2. ↑ Weil, Elizabeth (September 25, 2023). "Sam Altman Is the Oppenheimer of Our Age". Intelligencer. Retrieved December 12, 2023.
  3. ↑ Mickle, Tripp; Metz, Cade; Isaac, Mike; Weise, Karen (December 9, 2023). "Inside OpenAI's Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 12, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Artificial: The OpenAI Story". Wall Street Journal. December 10, 2023. Retrieved December 12, 2023.
  5. 1 2 "Sam Alman Fired from Y Combinator by Paul Graham". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 23, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  6. ↑ Colome, Jordi Perez (May 26, 2023). "Sam Altman: billionaire ChatGPT creator, startup guru and prohet of the apcalypse?". El Pais.
  7. 1 2 3 Friend, Tad (October 3, 2016). "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on May 17, 2017. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
  8. ↑ Chapman, Glenn; Bachner, Michael; Magid, Jacob; Ben-David, Ricky; Schneider, Tal; Magid, Jacob; Bachner, Michael; Sharon, Jeremy (May 17, 2023). "Sam Altman: The quick, deep thinker leading OpenAI". The Times of Israel. Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  9. 1 2 Weil, Elizabeth (September 25, 2023). "Sam Altman Is the Oppenheimer of Our Age". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on October 6, 2023. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
  10. ↑ Junod, Tom (December 18, 2014). "How Venture Capitalists Find Opportunities in the Future". Esquire. Archived from the original on December 20, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  11. ↑ Hagy, Paige (November 21, 2023). "Sam Altman's ousting from OpenAI could lead to even greater success: 'You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in five years and he'd be the king'". Fortune.
  12. ↑ "People". Y Combinator. Archived from the original on June 25, 2014. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  13. ↑ Ankeny, Jason (April 25, 2015). "Meet Y Combinator's Bold Whiz Kid Boss". Entrepreneur. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  14. ↑ "Executives". Loopt. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  15. ↑ Vascellaro, Jessica E. (March 9, 2012). "Startup Loopt Lands with Green Dot". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  16. ↑ Hydrazine Capital GP, LLC (February 14, 2023). "Form ADV - Uniform Application for Investment Adviser Registration and Report by Exempt Reporting Advisers" (PDF). Securities and Exchange Commission. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 27, 2023. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Hydrazine Capital LP - Company Profile and News". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on July 27, 2023. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
  18. ↑ Clark, Kate (March 8, 2019). "Y Combinator president Sam Altman is stepping down amid a series of changes at the accelerator". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  19. ↑ Loizos, Connie (November 6, 2015). "Garry Tan Says Goodbye to Y Combinator". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  20. ↑ Altman, Sam (August 26, 2015). "YC Stats". Y Combinator. Archived from the original on December 18, 2015. Retrieved December 19, 2015.
  21. ↑ Altman, Sam (September 13, 2016). "YC Changes". Y Combinator. Archived from the original on November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  22. ↑ Chafkin, Max (April 16, 2015). "Y Combinator President Sam Altman is Dreaming Big". Fast Company. Archived from the original on July 22, 2015. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
  23. ↑
    • "YC Continuity". Y Combinator. October 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 18, 2015. Retrieved December 19, 2015.
    • "YC Continuity". VentureBeat. October 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 19, 2015.
  24. ↑ "YC Research". Y Combinator. October 7, 2015. Archived from the original on February 15, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  25. ↑ "Y Combinator Research". YC Research. Archived from the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  26. ↑ Loizos, Connie (March 9, 2019). "Did Sam Altman make YC better or worse?". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on February 3, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  27. ↑ "Updates from YC". Archived from the original on March 16, 2019.
  28. ↑ Clark, Kate (March 8, 2019). "Y Combinator president Sam Altman is stepping down amid a series of changes at the accelerator". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  29. ↑ Seetharaman, Deepa (December 24, 2023). "Sam Altman's Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends". The Wall Street Journal.
  30. ↑ Currie, Richard (May 16, 2023). "Sam Altman rattles tin for Worldcoin crypto startup". The Register. Archived from the original on June 21, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  31. ↑ Nieva, Richard; Sethi, Aman (April 21, 2022). "Worldcoin Promised Free Crypto If They Scanned Their Eyeballs With "The Orb." Now They Feel Robbed". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  32. ↑ Guo, Eileen; Renaldi, Adi (April 6, 2022). "Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  33. ↑ "You Can Get This Free Crypto—If the 'Orb' Scans Your Eye". Wired. October 21, 2021. Archived from the original on June 29, 2023. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  34. ↑ Hart, Robert (July 24, 2023). "What Is Worldcoin? Here's What To Know About The Eyeball-Scanning Crypto Project Launched By OpenAI's Sam Altman". Forbes. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  35. ↑ "How the Launch Works". Worldcoin. October 21, 2021. Archived from the original on May 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  36. ↑ "Opening the Orb: A look inside Worldcoin's biometric imaging device". Worldcoin. January 27, 2023. Archived from the original on February 13, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  37. ↑ "Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved December 31, 2023.
  38. ↑ Livemint (December 23, 2023). "ChatGPT-powered Humane Ai Pin to be shipped in March 2024: Check price, features". mint. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  39. ↑ Olanoff, Drew (December 11, 2015). "Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  40. ↑ De Vynck, Gerrit (April 9, 2023). "The man who unleashed AI on an unsuspecting Silicon Valley". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 9, 2023. Retrieved April 13, 2023.
  41. ↑ Cade, Metz (July 22, 2019). "With $1 Billion From Microsoft, an A.I. Lab Wants to Mimic the Brain". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 18, 2023. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  42. ↑ "WATCH: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee". PBS NewsHour. May 15, 2023. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
  43. ↑ "OpenAI announces leadership transition". openai.com. Archived from the original on November 17, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
  44. ↑ Peters, Jay (November 17, 2023). "Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 17, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
  45. ↑ Das, Shanti; Connett, David (November 18, 2023). "Sam Altman 'was working on new venture' before sacking from OpenAI". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Archived from the original on November 19, 2023. Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  46. ↑ "Microsoft CEO says Sam Altman will be joining Microsoft". Reuters. November 20, 2023. Archived from the original on November 20, 2023. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  47. ↑ Warren, Tom (November 20, 2023). "Hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to resign and join Microsoft". The Verge. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
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  49. ↑ Cade, Metz (November 22, 2023). "Sam Altman Is Reinstated as OpenAI's Chief Executive". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 22, 2023. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
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  51. ↑ "A New Team At Reddit". Sam Altman. November 13, 2014. Archived from the original on February 13, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
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  53. ↑ Herper, Matthew (June 16, 2020). "Teaming tech and pharma, effort seeks to speed Covid-19 clinical trials". Stat. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  54. ↑ Krystal, Hu; Tong, Anna; Jeffrey, Dastin (March 12, 2023). "Tech execs race to save startups from 'extinction' after SVB collapse". Reuters. Archived from the original on March 12, 2023. Retrieved March 12, 2023.
  55. ↑ Regalado, Antonio (March 8, 2023). "Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on March 19, 2023. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  56. ↑ Hiller, Jennifer (April 23, 2023). "Tech Billionaires Bet on Fusion as Holy Grail for Business". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on April 23, 2023. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  57. ↑ "University of Waterloo to honour Silicon Valley leader Sam Altman". CBC News. June 2, 2017. Archived from the original on March 16, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  58. ↑ "OpenAI CEO Receives Indonesia's First Golden Visa". Finews. September 6, 2023. Archived from the original on October 4, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
  59. ↑ "Time 100". Time. April 13, 2023. Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
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  61. ↑ "Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs". Businessweek. April 18, 2008. Archived from the original on April 28, 2009. Retrieved April 19, 2009.
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  63. ↑ "The World's Most Powerful and Secret Group, Explained". Time. June 9, 2016. Archived from the original on June 4, 2023. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  64. ↑ "Participants 2022". www.bilderbergmeetings.org. Archived from the original on May 25, 2023. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
  65. ↑ Gilchrist, Karen (May 18, 2023). "A secretive annual meeting attended by the world's elite has A.I. top of the agenda". CNBC. Archived from the original on May 23, 2023. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
  66. ↑ Skelton, Charlie (May 20, 2023). "At Bilderberg's bigwig bash two things are guaranteed: Kissinger and secrecy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 23, 2023. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
  67. ↑ Isaacson, Walter (September 13, 2023). "Artificial Intelligence". Elon Musk. Simon and Schuster. pp. 240–243 – via Google Books.
  68. ↑ "Fireside Chat with Sam Altman". Rescale. February 24, 2020. Archived from the original on August 3, 2022. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  69. 1 2 3 Weil, Elizabeth (September 25, 2023). "Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of our Age". New York: Intelligencer. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  70. 1 2 3 Friend, Tad (October 3, 2016). "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on May 17, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  71. 1 2 3 Farah, Lynn (November 24, 2023). "Meet ChatGPT boss Sam Altman, who's back in the CEO chair: Microsoft briefly hired him before his OpenAI return, he came out as LGBT in high school, and he splurges his millions on Tesla and McLaren". South China Morning Post. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  72. ↑ Bajekal, Naina; Perrigo, Billy (December 6, 2023). "2023 CEO of the Year: Sam Altman". Time. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  73. ↑ Kay, Melia Russell, Grace. "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just got married". Business Insider. Retrieved January 11, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  74. ↑ Le, Linh (January 13, 2024). "OpenAI's Sam Altman ties knot with same-sex partner on $43M Hawaii estate". VN Express. Archived from the original on January 16, 2024.
  75. ↑ Metz, Cade (March 31, 2023). "The ChatGPT King Isn't Worried, but He Knows You Might Be". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 18, 2023. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  76. ↑ Russell, Melia; Black, Julia. "Inside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's fixation on death and the apocalypse". Business Insider. Archived from the original on May 19, 2023. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
  77. ↑ Romm, Tony (July 31, 2017). "Sam Altman will spend big on a new political movement to fix U.S. housing, health care and more". Vox. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
  78. ↑ Russell, Melia (November 14, 2019). "Andrew Yang preached his tech-friendly gospel at Sam Altman's San Francisco house: You can't treat tech like oil companies and breaking up Amazon won't bring malls back". Business Insider. Archived from the original on July 2, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
  79. ↑ Tindera, Michela (May 22, 2020). "Silicon Valley's Sam Altman Gave $250,000 To Democratic Super-PAC Supporting Biden". Forbes. Archived from the original on July 3, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
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