Sam Altman
CEO, OpenAI
Biography
Samuel Harris Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since 2019.
Career Timeline
Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and investor who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since 2019.
In 2005, after studying computer science for two years at Stanford University in Stanford, California, he dropped out without earning a bachelor's degree.
In 2011, Altman became a partner at startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC), initially working on a part-time basis.
Loopt was acquired by Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million in March 2012.
For eight days in 2014, Altman was the CEO of Reddit, a social media company, after CEO Yishan Wong resigned.
Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and became its CEO in 2019, a role that made him a prominent figure of the AI boom.
Like Danzeisen, Altman was mentioned as a friend in Thiel's circle by BuzzFeed News in 2017.
Altman had contemplated running for governor of California in the 2018 election, but later decided not to enter.
Key Achievements
- Scaled Y Combinator to fund hundreds of prominent startups
- Led OpenAI through the launch of ChatGPT
- Co-founded Worldcoin to distribute a global digital currency
Notable Quotes
"I prep for survival. I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to."
"The Context By David Wallace-Wells, The AI Backlash Will Be Ugly and No One is Ready. Not Even Tech C.E.O.s., The New York Times Magazine (17 May 2026)"
"We are already in the phase of co-evolution — the AIs affect, effect, and infect us, and then we improve the AI. We build more computing power and run the AI on it, and it figures out how to build even better chips."