Samuel Harris Altman, a prominent American investor and entrepreneur, gained recognition as the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, the force behind the widely utilized AI chatbot ChatGPT. His tenure from 2014 to 2019 as president at Y Combinator, a tech startup accelerator, is noteworthy.
According to Crunchbase, Altman has backed 94 companies, particularly in the realms of nuclear energy and technology startups. Notable among his investments are nuclear fusion startup Helion, payment processor Stripe, and online travel giant Airbnb. Additionally, Altman co-founded WorldCoin, a cryptocurrency-based biometric platform, and serves as an advisor to the Stellar Development Foundation, advocating for the growth of the Stellar cryptocurrency.
Sam Altman’s Childhood and Schooling
Sam Altman was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after being born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 22, 1985. When he was eight years old, his parents, real estate broker Jerry Altman and dermatologist Connie Gibstine, gave him his first computer, an Apple Macintosh.
He quickly picked up coding, internet development, and software development skills.
Altman was a student at the St. Louis-based private college preparatory John Burroughs School. After that, he attended Stanford University in California to study computer science. However, he left school in 2005 along with two of his friends to work full-time on the location-based social networking mobile app Loopt.
Sam Altman’s Career Path
Loopt was one of the initial startups accepted into Y Combinator. After raising more than $30 million in venture funding, Loopt was valued at $175 million.
However, Altman and his co-founders sold the business for $43 million to Green Dot, a prepaid debit card issuer and payment platform, in March 2012 due to a lack of interest from consumers who were prepared to reveal their location with others.
Next, alongside his brother Jack Altman, Altman established the venture fund Hydrazine Capital, raising a total of $21 million, which included a sizable portion of the $5 million he had earned from Loopt as well as an investment from billionaire businessman Peter Thiel. Funded by Hydrazine, Y Combinator businesses.
2011 saw Altman become a partner at Y Combinator, and in 2014, the company’s founder, Paul Graham, selected Altman to take over as president. Reddit, a social networking platform, raised $50 million in a Series B funding round headed by Y Combinator under Altman.
At the age of 29, Altman was included on Forbes’ list of the 30 Under 30 venture capital investors in 2015. He launched Y Combinator Research, a nonprofit research lab with $10 million in funding, and YC Continuity, a $700 million equity fund whose goal is to invest in YC firms that are nearing maturity.
Altman’s position was elevated to president of YC Group in September 2016.
Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, investing $1 billion alongside notable figures like Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research. The company’s mission was to advance digital intelligence for the benefit of humanity at large.
In March 2019, Altman made the move from being the CEO of OpenAI, which was a non-profit to a dual structure with a “capped profit” firm, to chairman of the Y Combinator board in order to devote all of his time to the company. He had withdrawn his involvement with YC Group by 2020.
What Altman Does for OpenAI
OpenAI rose to prominence as the top developer in the generative AI field under Altman’s direction. The business debuted ChatGPT in November 2022 after getting a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019.
In just five days, the AI chatbot became the platform with the fastest-ever million-user milestone.
The DALL·E text-to-image AI generator was likewise created by OpenAI, and it was first released in January 2021. Launched in September 2023, the DALL·E 3 model is the most recent and can comprehend “significantly more nuance and detail” than its predecessors.
Microsoft announced a “multibillion-dollar” investment in OpenAI in January 2023, for an amount that was not disclosed but was anticipated to be in the neighborhood of $10 billion.
The company, which is valued between $27 billion and $29 billion, secured an additional $300 million in April 2023 from a variety of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, K2 Global, and Founders Fund. Discussions about a proposed stock offering in October 2023 revealed a valuation of $86 billion.
In its 2023 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Time magazine included Altman.
Altman stated that “people should be happy that we’re a little bit scared” of generative AI systems in an interview with ABC News in March 2023. “Some individuals won’t adhere to some of the safety restrictions that we impose,” he remarked. “I believe society has a finite amount of time to figure out how to handle, regulate, and react to that.”
By now, OpenAI had split into two companies: “capped-profit” OpenAI Global LLC and non-profit OpenAI Inc. OpenAI Global’s returns on investments were limited to 100 times, and the only controlling stakeholder in the company is OpenAI Inc.
This implies that the profit-making enterprise, of which Altman is not a shareholder, has a fiduciary duty to the non-profit owner and executive.
Short-Term Leave of Absence from OpenAI in November 2023 for Sam Altman
After being abruptly removed from their CEO position at OpenAI on November 17, 2023, alongside co-founder Greg Brockman, Altman received job offers from Microsoft to establish a new AI company.
The board cited Altman’s lack of consistent candor in communications as hindering their ability to fulfill responsibilities, leading them to doubt his future leadership at OpenAI.
While discussions about Altman’s return circulated within the company the following day, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, announced on November 20 that Altman, Brockman, and their team would spearhead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft.
Simultaneously, numerous OpenAI employees called for Altman’s reinstatement and demanded a board overhaul. Despite the uncertainty surrounding Altman’s dismissal, it was noted that a “misalignment” existed between the company’s for-profit and nonprofit strategies.
OpenAI’s direction gradually shifted under Altman in the direction of product development and profit. Nonprofit groups that place a high priority on open-source development and AI safety expressed worry over this change.
On November 22, nevertheless, things took a turn for the worse. Sam Altman unexpectedly returned to his role as CEO of OpenAI four days after taking a job at Microsoft. Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo formed the new inaugural board.
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