Altman was born on April 22, 1985, in
Chicago, Illinois,[6][7] into a Jewish family,[8] and grew up in
St. Louis,
Missouri. His mother is a dermatologist, while his father was a real estate broker. Altman is the eldest of four siblings.[9] At the age of eight, he received his first computer, an
Apple Macintosh, and began to learn how to code and take apart computer hardware.[10][11] He attended
John Burroughs School, a private school in
Ladue, Missouri.[12] In 2005, after two years at
Stanford University studying computer science, he dropped out without earning a bachelor's degree.[13][14]
Career
Early career
In 2005, at the age of 19,[15] Altman co-founded
Loopt,[16] a location-based
social networking mobile application. As CEO, Altman raised more than $30million in
venture capital for the company, including an initial investment of $5million from Patrick Chung of
Xfund and his team at
NEA, which was later followed by investments from
Sequoia Capital and
Y Combinator.[17] In March 2012, after Loopt failed to gain traction with enough users, the company was acquired by the
Green Dot Corporation for $43.4million.[18] The following month, Altman co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother, Jack Altman,[19][20] which is still in operation.[21]
Altman became a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that invests in a wide range of startups, in 2011, initially working there on a part-time basis.[22] In February 2014, Altman was named president of YCombinator by co-founder
Paul Graham.[23] In a 2014 blog post, Altman said that the total valuation of YCombinator companies had surpassed $65billion, including
Airbnb,
Dropbox,
Zenefits and
Stripe.[24] In September 2016, Altman announced his expanded role as president of YCGroup, which included YCombinator and other units.[25] Altman said that he hoped to expand YCombinator to fund 1,000 new companies per year. He also tried to expand the types of companies funded by YC, especially "hard technology" companies.[26] In October 2015, Altman announced YCContinuity, a $700million
equity fund investing in YCcompanies as they matured.[27] A week earlier, Altman had introduced YCombinator Research, a non-profit research lab, and donated $10million to fund it.[28] In March 2019, YCannounced Altman's transition from the president of the company to a less hands-on role as chairman of the board, for him to focus on OpenAI.[29][30] This decision came shortly after YC announced it would be moving its headquarters to San Francisco.[31][32] As of early 2020, he was no longer affiliated with YC.[5] It was later reported that Altman was fired from YC and had appointed himself chairman without authorization.[17]
Altman has several other investments, including "Humane," the world's first wearable computer powered by AI, "Retro Biosciences," a research company aiming to extend human life by 10 years, and "Helion Energy," an American fusion research company.[40][41]
On Friday, November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board, composed of researcher
Helen Toner,
Quora CEO
Adam D'Angelo, AI governance advocate Tasha McCauley, and most prominently in the firing, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist
Ilya Sutskever, announced that they had made the decision to remove Altman as CEO and Greg Brockman from the board, both of whom were co-founders.[32] The announcement cited that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications" in a public announcement on the OpenAI blog.[46][32] In response, Brockman resigned from his role as President of OpenAI.[47] The day after Altman was removed, The Verge reported that Altman and the board were in talks to bring him back to OpenAI.[48] On November 20, Microsoft CEO
Satya Nadella announced that Altman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.[49] Two days later, OpenAI employees published an
open letter to the board threatening to leave OpenAI and join Microsoft, where all employees had been promised jobs, unless all board members step down and reinstate Altman as CEO. 505 employees initially signed, which later grew to over 700 out of 770 total employees.[50] This included Ilya Sutskever, who had previously advocated for firing Altman, but now had apologized stating on Twitter, "I regret my participation in the board's actions." Late in the night on November 20, OpenAI announced that they had reached an "agreement in principle" for Altman to return as CEO and Brockman to return as president.[51][52] The current board was to resign, other than D'Angelo, who was kept to represent the views of the previous board.[citation needed]
On March 8, 2024, OpenAI announced that Altman would rejoin the Board of Directors after a review by law firm
WilmerHale.[53]
Other endeavors
For eight days in 2014, Altman was the CEO of
Reddit, a
social media company after CEO
Yishan Wong resigned.[54][55] He announced the return of
Steve Huffman as CEO on July 10, 2015.[56] He remained on its board until 2022.[57] Altman invested in multiple rounds of funding Reddit, in 2014, 2015, and 2021.[57][58] Prior to Reddit's
initial public offering in 2024, Altman was listed as its third-largest shareholder, with around nine percent ownership.[59]
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.[60] During the depositor run on
Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Altman provided capital to multiple
startups.[61] Altman invests in technology startups and nuclear energy companies. Some of his portfolio companies include
Airbnb,
Stripe and
Retro Biosciences.[62] He is also chairman of the board for
Helion, a company focused on developing nuclear fusion and Oklo, a nuclear fission company.[63]
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.[64]
Reception
In 2017, Altman received an
honoraryDoctor of Engineering degree from the
University of Waterloo in Canada for supporting companies through its Velocity entrepreneurship program.[65] The government of
Indonesia issued the country's first "golden visa", a 10-year border pass, to Altman in September 2023.[66]
Walter Isaacson opined that Altman had "Musk-like intensity" which was instrumental in the founding of
OpenAI in partnership with
Elon Musk.[75] In late February 2024 Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, alleging they broke the company’s founding agreement by giving priority to profit over benefit to humanity.[76] A few days later OpenAI executives, including Altman, dismissed these claims in a blog post.[77] The post said that the startup received only $45million from Musk instead of his commitment of $1billion and that Musk proposed to merge it with Tesla.[78]
Altman openly identifies as a
gay man.[80][81][82] He came out at the age of 17[80] in high school,[81][82] where he spoke out after some students objected to a
National Coming Out Day speaker.[80][83] He dated Loopt co-founder Nick Sivo for nine years; they broke up shortly after the company was acquired in 2012.[81]
Altman married engineer Oliver Mulherin in January 2024,[84] at their estate in Hawaii;[85] the pair live in San Francisco's
Russian Hill neighborhood and often spend weekends in
Napa, California.[82][86]
He is a
prepper.[7][87] Altman said in 2016: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the
Israel Defense Forces, and a big patch of land in
Big Sur I can fly to."[7]
Politics
Recode had reported that Altman might run for
Governor of California in the
2018 election, which he did not enter. In 2018, Altman announced "The United Slate", a political project to improve housing and healthcare policy.[88] In 2019, Altman held a fundraiser at his house in San Francisco for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate
Andrew Yang.[89] In May 2020, Altman donated $250,000 to
American Bridge 21st Century, a
super-PAC supporting Democratic presidential candidate
Joe Biden.[90]
^Chapman, Glenn; Bachner, Michael; Magid, Jacob; Ben-David, Ricky; Schneider, Tal; Magid, Jacob; Bachner, Michael; Sharon, Jeremy (May 17, 2023).
"Sam Altman: The quick, deep thinker leading OpenAI". The Times of Israel.
Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.