Sam Altman

Sam Altman grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis in the United States. In 2003, he enrolled at Stanford University to study computer science and worked in its artificial intelligence lab; two years later, he left school to pursue a startup.⁠[1][2]

Altman co-founded the location-based social service Loopt and joined Y Combinator’s first summer startup program. Loopt combined mobile phone location with social networking to let users discover nearby friends, places, and events; YC’s company profile lists him as a founder.⁠[3][4]

Y Combinator announced that Altman, Garry Tan, Emmett Shear, and Justin KanJustin KanJustin Kan is an American internet entrepreneur and investor who rose to prominence in 2007 with Justin.tv, which broadcast his life around the clock from a head-mounted camera. He went on to co-found the game streaming platform Twitch, which Amazon acquired for about $970 million in 2014; he also founded the legal technology company Atrium and co-founded the gaming payments platform Stash.Open the full entry were joining its team of part-time partners. The role allowed founders who were still running their companies to spend part of their time advising new batches of startups, and it marked a stage in his shift from incubated founder to startup investing and mentoring.⁠[5]

On April 4, Green Dot announced that it had completed its acquisition of Loopt for a total of about $43 million, including cash and incentive arrangements tied to employee retention. The announcement said Loopt’s employees would continue working at their existing office and join Green Dot’s technology team; this amount was the company’s total deal value, not Altman’s personal proceeds from the exit.⁠[6]

In a 2018 interview, Altman recalled that after selling Loopt, he used the proceeds from the exit and outside capital he raised to invest in other startups. He also said that he preferred being directly involved in running an organization over standing on the sidelines as only an investor; taking over YC later brought him back to operating responsibilities.⁠[4]

On February 21, Paul Graham published a note announcing that Altman would take over as president of YC starting with the next batch, while Graham would continue to take part in advising founders. YC’s later official author bio records Altman’s tenure as president as 2014 to 2019.⁠[7][2]

Altman announced the formation of the YC Board of Overseers, whose members included Jessica Livingston, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, Patrick CollisonPatrick CollisonPatrick Collison is an entrepreneur who grew up in Ireland. In 2010 he cofounded the payments and financial infrastructure company Stripe with his brother John Collison and serves as its chief executive; he is also a cofounder of the biomedical research organization Arc Institute and has been a director of Meta since 2025.Open the full entry, John Collison, and Altman himself. The body was given responsibility for appointing and removing YC’s president and for taking part in discussions of strategic direction.⁠[2]

Reddit announced a $50 million funding round, with Altman among the investors. On his own blog, he made clear that he made the investment in a personal capacity rather than through YC; he also proposed an arrangement to share investors’ equity with the community and to delegate the voting rights of his shares in the round to the company. The community equity distribution still had practical implementation issues to resolve at the time.⁠[8][9]

During the management transition following Yishan Wong’s resignation, Altman briefly served as Reddit’s chief executive officer. His post published on November 13 described the tenure as eight days and announced that Ellen Pao would become interim CEO and that Alexis Ohanian would return to the company as full-time executive chairman.⁠[10]

OpenAI announced its founding on December 11, initially positioned as a non-profit artificial intelligence research organization. The founding announcement listed Altman and Elon Musk as co-chairs, with Ilya Sutskever leading research and Greg Brockman serving as chief technology officer; the team also included researchers such as John Schulman and Wojciech Zaremba.⁠[11]

Altman was one of the funders listed in OpenAI’s founding announcement; other backers included Musk, Brockman, Reid HoffmanReid HoffmanReid Hoffman is an American entrepreneur, venture investor, author and podcast host, co-founder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI and Manas AI, and a partner at Greylock. A former PayPal executive, he has built and backed businesses in professional networking, artificial intelligence and drug discovery. His co-authored books include The Startup of You and Blitzscaling.Open the full entry, Jessica Livingston, Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry, and YC Research. Together they committed $1 billion, and the organization at the time encouraged its researchers to publish papers, share code, and collaborate.⁠[11]

Altman proposed funding basic income research under the name of YC Research, aiming to use empirical data to examine how unconditional cash affects work, creative activity, and living conditions. He linked the research to the ways technology might change employment and wealth distribution, and publicly recruited a researcher to lead the project.⁠[12]

In a Masters of Scale interview, Altman looked back on YC’s expansion into hard tech, international startup teams, later-stage investing, and online courses. He argued for first building a product that users will recommend on their own and then accelerating growth; as an organization grows larger, he said, it needs a clear division of responsibilities and managers with experience in scaling.⁠[4]

According to materials on the World website, Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity (TFH) with Alex Blania and Max Novendstern in 2019. The company takes part in developing the Worldcoin project and its identity verification infrastructure. The website currently lists Altman as chairman of TFH and Blania as chief executive officer.⁠[13]

In March 2019, Altman stepped down as president of YC and shifted his focus to OpenAI.⁠[14]

OpenAI created OpenAI LP, controlled by its non-profit entity, with Altman as CEO. The structure allowed investors and employees to earn capped returns in order to raise the funds needed for research, compute, and talent; value beyond the cap goes to the non-profit entity.⁠[15]

MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and a partnership to develop Azure AI supercomputing technologies. In the announcement, Altman linked large-scale computing power to the goal of achieving artificial general intelligence; the partnership became an important infrastructure arrangement for OpenAI’s subsequent model development and commercialization.⁠[16]

Altman and his brother Jack Altman (then CEO of Lattice) co-led a $30 million Series B round for business payments startup Routable, with Flexport and a number of angel investors participating; the round was not led by venture capital firms. Altman said that the booms in the gig and creator economies were driving a big increase in the volume of both payments and payees, and that with the addition of enterprise capabilities, Routable could grow into an enormous business; he also valued the company’s approach of being embedded in a company’s flow of funds rather than just serving as an interface for moving money.⁠[17][17][17][17][17][17][17]

On October 6, 2026, Anchorage Digital announced that it had acquired Routable, which would operate as Routable by Anchorage Digital after the acquisition. At the time of the acquisition, Routable’s backers included Sam and Jack Altman, Max MullenMax MullenMax Mullen is an entrepreneur and angel investor, one of the three co-founders of the online grocery delivery platform Instacart, who has invested as an angel in the business payments platform Routable.Open the full entry, and Joe Gebbia.⁠[18][19][18]

With Altman as CEO, OpenAI released a research preview of ChatGPT on November 30, allowing users to complete tasks such as writing, question answering, and coding assistance through conversation. The product brought the company’s language models directly to the general public.⁠[20]

OpenAI released GPT-4 and advanced the model’s applications through ChatGPT and its API. During this period, Altman’s public work spanned company operations, partnerships, and policy communication; the model’s capabilities and experimental results were developed and reported jointly by OpenAI’s research and engineering teams.⁠[21][22]

Altman testified as CEO of OpenAI before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He suggested considering a licensing or registration regime for AI models above a certain capability threshold, conducting internal and external testing before release and publishing evaluation results, and advancing safety standards that can be updated as the technology evolves, along with international coordination.⁠[22]

Worldcoin began its official launch in July. A joint letter from Altman and Blania introduced World ID, World App, WLD, and the Orb biometric device, setting out the goals of distinguishing humans from machines in the age of AI and expanding digital identity and financial networks. Before the official launch, TFH had transferred the protocol to the independent World Foundation; the foundation and TFH are governed separately.⁠[23][13]

OpenAI’s board announced that Altman was departing as CEO and leaving the board, with Mira Murati serving as interim CEO. The reason given by the board was that he had not been consistently candid in his communications, hindering the board’s ability to exercise its oversight responsibilities. This was the board’s explanation of the removal at the time.⁠[24]

After a leadership crisis, OpenAI formally announced on November 29 that Altman was returning as CEO, Greg Brockman as president, and that Murati was resuming her role as CTO. A new initial board consisted of Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo, which set about reviewing the events and making governance changes.⁠[25]

On December 6, TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry named Altman its 2023 CEO of the Year, in coverage that also discussed the impact of ChatGPT and OpenAI’s governance crisis.⁠[1]

OpenAI released a summary of the WilmerHale review’s findings, stating that the 2023 removal resulted from a breakdown in trust between the prior board and Altman rather than from concerns about product safety, the pace of development, or finances; the new board backed his continued leadership of the company, and Altman rejoined the board. The company also announced improvements to its conflict of interest policy, whistleblower mechanisms, and governance arrangements. This account is based on a commissioned review disclosed by the company, not a court ruling.⁠[26]

Media reports revealed that OpenAI had tied departing employees’ equity to non-disparagement agreements. Altman said he had not known about it before and took responsibility, and stated that vested equity had never been clawed back; the company subsequently announced that it would stop enforcing the relevant provisions.⁠[27]

Altman and his spouse, Oliver Mulherin, jointly signed the Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropy during their lifetimes or in their wills. In their public letter, the two said their giving would focus on supporting technology that can create greater abundance of resources and opportunity for society. The letter was signed on May 18, and the initiative announced its new members on May 28.⁠[28][29]

OpenResearch released an employment summary of the related randomized controlled study: 1,000 low-income participants received $1,000 per month for three consecutive years, while 2,000 control group members received $50 per month. This version of the study reported that the treatment group’s labor force participation fell by about 2 percentage points and weekly working hours decreased by about 1.3 to 1.4 hours, with no significant improvement found in job quality. The paper was written by researchers including Eva Vivalt and Elizabeth Rhodes.⁠[30]

Spain’s data protection agency, the AEPD, announced that a Bavarian regulator in Germany had found that Worldcoin-related data processing violated several GDPR requirements, ordered the deletion of existing iris codes that lacked necessary safeguards, and required improvements to explicit consent and right-to-erasure mechanisms. The World Foundation responded that it had replaced its technology and deleted the old codes, and that it was appealing over the anonymization standard. This is a data protection dispute concerning the project and should not be described as Altman personally receiving the same penalty.⁠[31][32]

OpenAI, together with SoftBankSoftBank GroupSoftBank Group (SoftBank Group Corp.) is an investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981. Starting out as a distributor of personal computer software, it moved into the internet, broadband and mobile communications, and has since become an investment group centered on AI-related assets such as Arm, the SoftBank Vision Funds and OpenAI.Open the full entry, Oracle, MGXMGXMGX is an Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence and advanced technology investment company, announced in March 2024 by Abu Dhabi’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council with Mubadala and G42 as foundational partners and chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It has invested in companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Databricks, and Binance, and co-founded the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) with BlackRock, Microsoft, and others.Open the full entry, and others, announced the Stargate project, which aims to invest $500 billion in U.S. AI infrastructure over four years, beginning with an initial deployment of $100 billion. The announcement assigned operational responsibility to OpenAI and financial responsibility to SoftBank; it is a long-term plan under Altman’s leadership to expand the company’s computing infrastructure.⁠[33]

Helion announced a $425 million Series F round in which Altman continued to participate as an existing investor, alongside Lightspeed, SoftBank, Mithril, and other institutions. The funds were to be used to advance the commercialization of fusion power; the future power supply goals the company disclosed at the time do not mean that commercial power generation has been achieved.⁠[34]

In a report on Retro Biosciences published on April 7, journalist Ashlee Vance recorded that Altman had put $180 million into the company. The company researches extending healthy lifespan and has set a goal of adding ten years of healthy life; Altman’s role here is that of a funder, and this research goal is not a proven therapeutic effect in humans.⁠[35]

Nuclear energy company Oklo announced that Altman was stepping down as chairman, to be succeeded by co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. Altman said that, as Oklo explored large-scale energy partnerships with the AI industry, this was the right time for him to step aside. The company’s mention of a potential partnership with OpenAI at the time was exploratory in nature.⁠[36]

A public letter jointly issued by Altman and Jony Ive was updated on July 9, confirming that the io Products team had officially joined OpenAI. Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and take on design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI, with the collaboration aimed at exploring new AI devices and interaction experiences.⁠[37]

OpenAI restructured so that the non-profit OpenAI Foundation controls the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC. The company’s current structure description lists Altman as CEO and as a member of the Foundation’s board; the Foundation retains special governance rights to appoint and remove Group directors. The company should not be described as personally owned or controlled by him on the basis of his CEO role alone.⁠[38]

OpenAI announced its participation in Merge Labs’ seed round. The co-founders of the brain-computer interface research organization include Mikhail Shapiro, Tyson Aflalo, Sumner Norman, Alex Blania, Sandro Herbig, and Altman, who took part in a personal capacity. OpenAI said it would collaborate with the organization on areas such as scientific foundation models; the announcement did not disclose the specific amount of OpenAI’s investment.⁠[39]

Annie Altman filed a civil lawsuit in 2025 alleging that her older brother had sexually abused her in their early years; Sam Altman denied the allegations. ReutersReutersReuters is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter and is now the news business of Thomson Reuters. It provides text, photo, video, and graphics coverage to media and institutional clients and distributes it through channels such as Reuters Connect.Open the full entry reported that on March 20, 2026, the court dismissed the original claims on statute of limitations grounds but allowed her to amend the complaint under another Missouri law, while also allowing Altman to continue pursuing a defamation counterclaim. This procedural decision did not rule that the allegations themselves were true.⁠[40]

On March 23, AxiosAxiosAxios is a US digital news media company founded in 2016 by former Politico executives Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz and launched in January 2017. It is known for short news items and industry newsletters in the “Smart Brevity” style, especially for its Washington political coverage, and publishes local news newsletters in cities across the United States through Axios Local. Since 2022 it has been owned by Cox Enterprises.Open the full entry, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Altman had stepped down as chairman of Helion’s board and left the board; the report also said that OpenAI was in talks to buy power from Helion. Several conditions of the negotiations remained unresolved, and this should not be taken to mean that power supply has begun.⁠[41]

Reuters reported on April 27 that Annie Altman’s two law firms had moved to withdraw from representing her because of a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship, with the withdrawal still subject to court approval. Sam Altman continued to deny the allegations and pursued a defamation counterclaim. The report did not record that a final judgment on the merits had been issued in the case.⁠[42]

The lawsuit filed by Elon Musk over OpenAI’s commercial transformation and founding mission involved Altman. On May 18, the court accepted an advisory jury’s statute of limitations finding and dismissed the relevant claims; Musk said he would appeal. The disposition was based on the timing of the suit and should not be read as the court having accepted or rejected, point by point, each party’s claims about the company’s mission.⁠[43]

The State of Florida sued OpenAI and Altman, alleging that the company concealed the risks of ChatGPT and ignored safety warnings involving minors. OpenAI responded that it continues to strengthen its safeguards and is cooperating with relevant law enforcement investigations. This item records the allegations in the lawsuit and the response, and does not constitute a court finding of liability.⁠[44]

Altman appeared on David Senra’s eponymous interview podcast, in an episode released on August 23, 2026. On the show, he said that most of his effort right now is on research and compute and that he would like to be able to spend more time on product; he said the most important thing OpenAI can do is create smart models and run them efficiently and abundantly for a lot of people. He said that scaling compute the way OpenAI is doing involves complex supply chain and financing challenges, and that this is probably already, or is rapidly becoming, the most expensive infrastructure project in history, technically spanning everything from designing its own chips to the supply chain of fabs and rack makers to the power systems.⁠[45][45][45][45][45][45][45][45]

On September 2, Altman attended a G20 innovation ministerial event as CEO of OpenAI.⁠[46]

In “Energy,” Altman argued that cheap, safe, and abundant energy can improve economic and living conditions. He explained that he invested in the fusion company Helion and the fission company UPower and joined their boards in order to advance energy technology development that requires long-term financial support.⁠[47]

In “Three Observations,” Altman discussed the relationship among training resources, model capabilities, usage costs, and social value, and predicted that AI agents will change knowledge work. He also noted that technological progress will not automatically lead to a more equal distribution, and put forward policy ideas including universal access to compute; these are his public judgments and recommendations.⁠[48]