Sam Altman

Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American businessman and entrepreneur who has served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI since 2019. Having overseen the successful launch of ChatGPT in 2022, he is widely considered to be one of the leading figures of the AI boom.

Altman attended Stanford University for two years before dropping out and co-founding Loopt, a smartphone geosocial networking service, which raised more than US$30 million in venture capital. In 2011, Altman joined Y Combinator, a technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm, and was the company's president from 2014 to 2019. In 2023, four years after becoming OpenAI's CEO, he was ousted by the organization's board of directors, who cited a lack of "confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI" in an official post. However, the move was immediately met with significant backlash from employees and investors, resulting in Altman's reinstatement five days later and the formation of a new board. He has served as the chairman of clean energy companies Helion Energy and Oklo, from which he stepped down in April 2025.

In 2025, Altman was named among the "Architects of AI" for Time's Person of the Year. His net worth is estimated at US$2.1 billion by Forbes.

Early life and education

Altman was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 22, 1985, to a family of American Jews. His mother Connie Gibstine is a dermatologist and his father Jerry Altman was a real estate broker. Altman is the eldest of four siblings: he has two brothers, Max and Jack; and a sister, Annie. His paternal great-grandfather was born in Płock, Poland. In 1989, the Altman family moved to Jerry's hometown of Clayton, Missouri.

At the age of eight, Altman received his first computer—an Apple Macintosh—and began to learn how to code and disassemble and examine computer hardware. He attended John Burroughs School, a private institution in Ladue, Missouri. In 2005, after studying computer science for two years at Stanford University in Stanford, California, he dropped out without earning a bachelor's degree.

Business career

Early career

In 2005, at the age of 19, Altman co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application. As CEO, he raised more than $30 million in venture capital for the company, including an initial investment of $5 million from Patrick Chung of Xfund and his team at New Enterprise Associates, followed by investments from Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator. In March 2012, after Loopt failed to gain significant user traction, the company was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.

Y Combinator

In 2011, Altman became a partner at startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC), initially working on a part-time basis. In February 2014, he became president of YC. He aimed to expand YC to fund 1,000 new companies per year and sought to broaden the types of companies funded, particularly focusing on "hard technology" startups. In October 2015, Altman was involved in expanding YC's scope. He contributed $10 million to the initial fund of Y Combinator Research, and announced YC Continuity, a fund to invest in maturing YC companies. In September 2016, Altman's role at YC expanded to president of YC Group, which included Y Combinator and other units.

YC moved its headquarters to San Francisco in 2019. In March, Altman and YC began to falsely claim that Altman had transitioned from president to a less hands-on role as chairman of the board, allowing him to focus on OpenAI. However, Y Combinator partners never approved his appointment. In early 2020, Altman and YC terminated their relationship.

Investor

As of June 2024, Altman's investment portfolio includes stakes in over 400 companies, valued at around $2.8 billion. Some of these investments intersect with companies doing business with OpenAI, which has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. OpenAI's chairman of the board, Bret Taylor, maintained that Altman has been transparent about his investments.

In April 2012, Altman co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother, Jack Altman. The initial $21 million fund included a large part of the $5 million he got from selling Loopt, but most came from Peter Thiel, his mentor and main backer in Silicon Valley. Sam Altman invested 75 percent of the money in Y-Combinator companies. In 2023, when Hydrazine launched its fourth fund, the University of Michigan endowment was the only outside investor. Its investments in Hydrazine were the largest the endowment has made. Altman debuted on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in March 2024 with an estimated net worth of $2 billion, primarily from his venture capital funds related to Hydrazine Capital.

Altman was invited to attend the Bilderberg Meeting in 2016, 2022, and 2023.

Biotech

Altman has several other investments in companies including Humane, which was developing a wearable AI-powered device; Retro Biosciences, a research company aiming to extend human life by 10 years; Boom Technology, a supersonic airline developer; Cruise, a self-driving car company later acquired by General Motors; and Helion Energy, an American fusion research company.

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. During the depositor run on Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Altman provided capital to multiple startups. Altman invests in technology startups and nuclear energy companies. Some of his portfolio companies include Airbnb, Stripe and Retro Biosciences.

Along with Peter Thiel, Altman was an early seed investor in Minicircle, "a longevity biotech company focused on developing gene therapies to extend human lifespans." He also invested in charter city projects Próspera and Praxis, which have gotten additional financial support from author and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. Both cities have been linked by various publications and journalists to the Network State movement.

Reddit

For eight days in 2014, Altman was the CEO of Reddit, a social media company, after CEO Yishan Wong resigned. On July 10, 2015, he announced the return of Steve Huffman as CEO. He remained on its board until 2022. Altman invested in multiple rounds of funding for Reddit (in 2014, 2015, and 2021). Prior to Reddit's initial public offering in 2024, Altman was listed as its third-largest shareholder, with around 9% ownership.

Worldcoin

In 2019, Altman co-founded the for-profit company Tools For Humanity. The company promoted the Worldcoin cryptocurrency and eye-scanning systems to provide proof of personhood and authentication. However, it has engaged in deceptive marketing practices to drive sign-ups. By 2023, Tools For Humanity had scanned two million people's eyes and raised $250 million from several investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sam Bankman-Fried.

Kenya was one of the first countries to register WorldCoin. The promise of free money led to rapid growth in Kenya until WorldCoin promotion was paused by regulators. Citing legal concerns over biometric data privacy and potential fraud concerns, regulators in France, the United Kingdom, Bavaria, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, and Hong Kong have investigated or suspended WorldCoin. WorldCoin has never been offered in the United States and the company limits its disclosures due to regulatory scrutiny.

Energy investments

Altman is chairman of the board for Helion Energy, a company focused on developing nuclear fusion. He also invested in Exowatt, a solar energy startup that aims to provide clean energy to data centers.

In March 2021, Altman and investment banker Michael Klein co-founded AltC Acquisition Corp, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), where he was also the CEO. In May 2024, Oklo Inc. completed a merger with the SPAC to become a public company. Altman remained as chairman of Oklo following the merger until stepping down in April 2025 to "avoid conflict of interest" and "open up opportunities for future deals between OpenAI and Oklo."

OpenAI

OpenAI begins

OpenAI was initially founded as a nonprofit organization 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 pledges for $1 billion. In 2019, OpenAI stated that $130 million of the pledged funds had been collected. TechCrunch reported that YC Research never contributed any of their pledged funds.

Altman said in 2015 that they were partly motivated by concerns about AI safety and existential risk from artificial general intelligence. Altman highlighted the importance of open-source and making AI for collective good for humanity, above financial stakeholders in response to mitigation of risk. Altman noted it will be a decades-long project that eventually surpasses human intelligence. Walter Isaacson opined that Altman had "Musk-like intensity".