Sam Altman
 | |
| Nationality | American |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, CEO of OpenAI |
| Known for | OpenAI, ChatGPT, Y Combinator, World |
Sam Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and the chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. He was previously president of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, and co-founded the identity and cryptocurrency project World, formerly Worldcoin.[1]
Early career
Altman was born in Chicago and grew up in St. Louis. He left Stanford University after two years to found Loopt, a location-based social networking app, which was sold in 2012. He was president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019.
OpenAI
In December 2015, Altman and Elon Musk co-chaired the launch of OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence lab, with backers including Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel pledging about $1 billion.[2] He became its chief executive in 2019. OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in November 2022 set off the boom in generative AI.
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board fired Altman, saying he had been "not consistently candid in his communications". He was reinstated within days under a new board.[3][4] In October 2025, OpenAI completed a restructuring that turned its business into a for-profit public benefit corporation, controlled by a nonprofit foundation.[5]
AI policy
In testimony to the US Senate in May 2023, Altman proposed a US or global agency to license the most powerful AI systems, with the power to "take that license away".[6] In October 2026, amid a global shortage of memory chips, he drew criticism for calling it "quite terrible" that memory in personal computers sits mostly idle while data centers need it; he later clarified that he wanted people to have "tons of memory".[7] In September 2026, he backed Dario Amodei's call to slow the pace of AI development, saying "we need to pace the frontier".[8]
World
In 2019, Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity, which runs Worldcoin, a project that issues a cryptocurrency and a digital identity to people who verify themselves by having their irises scanned by a device called the Orb. It was renamed World in October 2024.[9]
See also
References
- ↑ "Sam Altman". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ December 11, 2015. "Non-profit OpenAI launches with backing from Elon Musk and Sam Altman". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ November 17, 2023. "ChatGPT-maker OpenAI pushes out co-founder and CEO Sam Altman". Associated Press. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ November 22, 2023. "OpenAI says ousted CEO Sam Altman to return to company behind ChatGPT". Associated Press. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ October 28, 2025. "OpenAI completes for-profit restructuring". Fortune. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ May 16, 2023. "ChatGPT chief says artificial intelligence should be regulated by a US or global agency". Associated Press. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ Tangermann, Victor (November 4, 2026). "Sam Altman reverses position on RAM". Futurism. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ Phung, An (September 12, 2026). "Anthropic CEO calls for slowing AI race". NBC News. Retrieved November 13, 2026.
- ↑ October 17, 2024. "Worldcoin rebrands as World, launches new retina-scanning Orb". Decrypt. Retrieved November 13, 2026.