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Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sam Altman biographer Keach Hagey explains why the OpenAI CEO was ‘born for this moment'
In 'The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future,' Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey examines our AI-obsessed moment through one of its key figures — Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. Hagey begins with Altman's Midwest childhood, then takes readers through his career at startup Loopt, accelerator Y Combinator, and now at OpenAI. She also sheds new light on the dramatic few days when Altman was fired, then quickly reinstated, as OpenAI's CEO. Looking back at what OpenAI employees now call 'the Blip,' Hagey said the failed attempt to oust Altman revealed that OpenAI's complex structure — with a for-profit company controlled by a nonprofit board — is 'not stable.' And with OpenAI largely backing down from plans to let the for-profit side take control, Hagey predicted that this 'fundamentally unstable arrangement' will 'continue to give investors pause.' Does that mean OpenAI could struggle to raise the funds it needs to keep going? Hagey replied that it could 'absolutely' be an issue. 'My research into Sam suggests that he might well be up to that challenge,' she said. 'But success is not guaranteed.' In addition, Hagey's biography (also available as an audiobook on Spotify) examines Altman's politics, which she described as 'pretty traditionally progressive' — making it a bit surprising that he's struck massive infrastructure deals with the backing of the Trump administration. 'But this is one area where, in some ways, I feel like Sam Altman has been born for this moment, because he is a deal maker and Trump is a deal maker,' Hagey said. 'Trump respects nothing so much as a big deal with a big price tag on it, and that is what Sam Altman is really great at.' In an interview with TechCrunch, Hagey also discussed Altman's response to the book, his trustworthiness, and the AI 'hype universe.' This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You open the book by acknowledging some of the reservations that Sam Altman had about the project — this idea that we tend to focus too much on individuals rather than organizations or broad movements, and also that it's way too early to assess the impact of OpenAI. Did you share those concerns? Well, I don't really share them, because this was a biography. This project was to look at a person, not an organization. And I also think that Sam Altman has set himself up in a way where it does matter what kind of moral choices he has made and what his moral formation has been, because the broad project of AI is really a moral project. That is the basis of OpenAI's existence. So I think these are fair questions to ask about a person, not just an organization. As far as whether it's too soon, I mean, sure, it's definitely [early to] assess the entire impact of AI. But it's been an extraordinary story for OpenAI — just so far, it's already changed the stock market, it has changed the entire narrative of business. I'm a business journalist. We do nothing but talk about AI, all day long, every day. So in that way, I don't think it's too early. And despite those reservations, Altman did cooperate with you. Can you say more about what your relationship with him was like during the process of researching the book? Well, he was definitely not happy when he was informed about the book's existence. And there was a long period of negotiation, frankly. In the beginning, I figured I was going to write this book without his help — what we call, in the business, a write-around profile. I've done plenty of those over my career, and I figured this would just be one more. Over time, as I made more and more calls, he opened up a little bit. And [eventually,] he was generous to sit down with me several times for long interviews and share his thoughts with me. Has he responded to the finished book at all? No. He did tweet about the project, about his decision to participate with it, but he was very clear that he was never going to read it. It's the same way that I don't like to watch my TV appearances or podcasts that I'm on. In the book, he's described as this emblematic Silicon Valley figure. What do you think are the key characteristics that make him representative of the Valley and the tech industry? In the beginning, I think it was that he was young. The Valley really glorifies youth, and he was 19 years old when he started his first startup. You see him going into these meetings with people twice his age, doing deals with telecom operators for his first startup, and no one could get over that this kid was so smart. The other is that he is a once-in-a-generation fundraising talent, and that's really about being a storyteller. I don't think it's an accident that you have essentially a salesman and a fundraiser at the top of the most important AI company today, That ties into one of the questions that runs through the book — this question about Altman's trustworthiness. Can you say more about the concerns people seem to have about that? To what extent is he a trustworthy figure? Well, he's a salesman, so he's really excellent at getting in a room and convincing people that he can see the future and that he has something in common with them. He gets people to share his vision, which is a rare talent. There are people who've watched that happen a bunch of times, who think, 'Okay, what he says does not always map to reality,' and have, over time, lost trust in him. This happened both at his first startup and very famously at OpenAI, as well as at Y Combinator. So it is a pattern, but I think it's a typical critique of people who have the salesman skill set. So it's not necessarily that he's particularly untrustworthy, but it's part-and-parcel of being a salesman leading these important companies. I mean, there also are management issues that are detailed in the book, where he is not great at dealing with conflict, so he'll basically tell people what they want to hear. That causes a lot of sturm-und-drang in the management ranks, and it's a pattern. Something like that happened at Loopt, where the executives asked the board to replace him as CEO. And you saw it happen at OpenAI as well. You've touched on Altman's firing, which was also covered in a book excerpt that was published in the Wall Street Journal. One of the striking things to me, looking back at it, was just how complicated everything was — all the different factions within the company, all the people who seemed pro-Altman one day and then anti-Altman the next. When you pull back from the details, what do you think is the bigger significance of that incident? The very big picture is that the nonprofit governance structure is not stable. You can't really take investment from the likes of Microsoft and a bunch of other investors and then give them absolutely no say whatsoever in the governance of the company. That's what they have tried to do, but I think what we saw in that firing is how power actually works in the world. When you have stakeholders, even if there's a piece of paper that says they have no rights, they still have power. And when it became clear that everyone in the company was going to go to Microsoft if they didn't reinstate Sam Altman, they reinstated Sam Altman. In the book, you take the story up to maybe the end of 2024. There have been all these developments since then, which you've continued to report on, including this announcement that actually, they're not fully converting to a for-profit. How do you think that's going to affect OpenAI going forward? It's going to make it harder for them to raise money, because they basically had to do an about-face. I know that the new structure going forward of the public benefit corporation is not exactly the same as the current structure of the for-profit — it is a little bit more investor friendly, it does clarify some of those things. But overall, what you have is a nonprofit board that controls a for-profit company, and that fundamentally unstable arrangement is what led to the so-called Blip. And I think you would continue to give investors pause, going forward, if they are going to have so little control over their investment. Obviously, OpenAI is still such a capital intensive business. If they have challenges raising more money, is that an existential question for the company? It absolutely could be. My research into Sam suggests that he might well be up to that challenge. But success is not guaranteed. Like you said, there's a dual perspective in the book that's partly about who Sam is, and partly about what that says about where AI is going from here. How did that research into his particular story shape the way you now look at these broader debates about AI and society? I went down a rabbit hole in the beginning of the book, [looking] into Sam's father, Jerry Altman, in part because I thought it was striking how he'd been written out of basically every other thing that had ever been written about Sam Altman. What I found in this research was a very idealistic man who was, from youth, very interested in these public-private partnerships and the power of the government to set policy. He ended up having an impact on the way that affordable housing is still financed to this day. And when I traced Sam's development, I saw that he has long believed that the government should really be the one that is funding and guiding AI research. In the early days of OpenAI, they went and tried to get the government to invest, as he's publicly said, and it didn't work out. But he looks back to these great mid-20th century labs like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs, which are private, but there was a ton of government money running through and supporting that ecosystem. And he says, 'That's the right way to do it.' Now I am watching daily as it seems like the United States is summoning the forces of state capitalism to get behind Sam Altman's project to build these data centers, both in the United States and now there was just one last week announced in Abu Dhabi. This is a vision he has had for a very, very long time. My sense of the vision, as he presented it earlier, was one where, on the one hand, the government is funding these things and building this infrastructure, and on the other hand, the government is also regulating and guiding AI development for safety purposes. And it now seems like the path being pursued is one where they're backing away from the safety side and doubling down on the government investment side. Absolutely. Isn't it fascinating? You talk about Sam as a political figure, as someone who's had political ambitions at different times, but also somebody who has what are in many ways traditionally liberal political views while being friends with folks like — at least early on — Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. And he's done a very good job of navigating the Trump administration. What do you think his politics are right now? I'm not sure his actual politics have changed, they are pretty traditionally progressive politics. Not completely — he's been critical about things like cancel culture, but in general, he thinks the government is there to take tax revenue and solve problems. His success in the Trump administration has been fascinating because he has been able to find their one area of overlap, which is the desire to build a lot of data centers, and just double down on that and not talk about any other stuff. But this is one area where, in some ways, I feel like Sam Altman has been born for this moment, because he is a deal maker and Trump is a deal maker. Trump respects nothing so much as a big deal with a big price tag on it, and that is what Sam Altman is really great at. You open and close the book not just with Sam's father, but with his family as a whole. What else is worth highlighting in terms of how his upbringing and family shapes who he is now? Well, you see both the idealism from his father and also the incredible ambition from his mother, who was a doctor, and had four kids and worked as a dermatologist. I think both of these things work together to shape him. They also had a more troubled marriage than I realized going into the book. So I do think that there's some anxiety there that Sam himself is very upfront about, that he was a pretty anxious person for much of his life, until he did some meditation and had some experiences. And there's his current family — he just had a baby and got married not too long ago. As a young gay man, growing up in the Midwest, he had to overcome some challenges, and I think those challenges both forged him in high school as a brave person who could stand up and take on a room as a public speaker, but also shaped his optimistic view of the world. Because, on that issue, I paint the scene of his wedding: That's an unimaginable thing from the early '90s, or from the '80s when he was born. He's watched society develop and progress in very tangible ways, and I do think that that has helped solidify his faith in progress. Something that I've found writing about AI is that the different visions being presented by people in the field can be so diametrically opposed. You have these wildly utopian visions, but also these warnings that AI could end the world. It gets so hyperbolic that it feels like people are not living in the same reality. Was that a challenge for you in writing the book? Well, I see those two visions — which feel very far apart — actually being part of the same vision, which is that AI is super important, and it's going to completely transform everything. No one ever talks about the true opposite of that, which is, 'Maybe this is going to be a cool enterprise tool, another way to waste time on the internet, and not quite change everything as much as everyone thinks.' So I see the doomers and the boomers feeding off each other and being part of the same sort of hype universe. As a journalist and as a biographer, you don't necessarily come down on one side or the other — but actually, can you say where you come down on that? Well, I will say that I find myself using it a lot more recently, because it's gotten a lot better. In the early stages, when I was researching the book, I was definitely a lot more skeptical of its transformative economic power. I'm less skeptical now, because I just use it a lot more. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Melden Sie sich an, um Ihr Portfolio aufzurufen. Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten
TechCrunch
01-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Sam Altman biographer Keach Hagey explains why the OpenAI CEO was ‘born for this moment'
In 'The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future,' Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey examines our AI-obsessed moment through one of its key figures — Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. Hagey begins with Altman's Midwest childhood, then takes readers through his career at startup Loopt, accelerator Y Combinator, and now at OpenAI. She also sheds new light on the dramatic few days when Altman was fired, then quickly reinstated, as OpenAI's CEO. Looking back at what OpenAI employees now call 'the Blip,' Hagey said the failed attempt to oust Altman revealed that OpenAI's complex structure — with a for-profit company controlled by a nonprofit board — is 'not stable.' And with OpenAI largely backing down from plans to let the for-profit side take control, Hagey predicted that this 'fundamentally unstable arrangement' will 'continue to give investors pause.' Does that mean OpenAI could struggle to raise the funds it needs to keep going? Hagey replied that it could 'absolutely' be an issue. 'My research into Sam suggests that he might well be up to that challenge,' she said. 'But success is not guaranteed.' In addition, Hagey's biography (also available as an audiobook on Spotify) examines Altman's politics, which she described as 'pretty traditionally progressive' — making it a bit surprising that he's struck massive infrastructure deals with the backing of the Trump administration. 'But this is one area where, in some ways, I feel like Sam Altman has been born for this moment, because he is a deal maker and Trump is a deal maker,' Hagey said. 'Trump respects nothing so much as a big deal with a big price tag on it, and that is what Sam Altman is really great at.' Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW In an interview with TechCrunch, Hagey also discussed Altman's response to the book, his trustworthiness, and the AI 'hype universe.' This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You open the book by acknowledging some of the reservations that Sam Altman had about the project — this idea that we tend to focus too much on individuals rather than organizations or broad movements, and also that it's way too early to assess the impact of OpenAI. Did you share those concerns? Well, I don't really share them, because this was a biography. This project was to look at a person, not an organization. And I also think that Sam Altman has set himself up in a way where it does matter what kind of moral choices he has made and what his moral formation has been, because the broad project of AI is really a moral project. That is the basis of OpenAI's existence. So I think these are fair questions to ask about a person, not just an organization. As far as whether it's too soon, I mean, sure, it's definitely [early to] assess the entire impact of AI. But it's been an extraordinary story for OpenAI — just so far, it's already changed the stock market, it has changed the entire narrative of business. I'm a business journalist. We do nothing but talk about AI, all day long, every day. So in that way, I don't think it's too early. And despite those reservations, Altman did cooperate with you. Can you say more about what your relationship with him was like during the process of researching the book? Well, he was definitely not happy when he was informed about the book's existence. And there was a long period of negotiation, frankly. In the beginning, I figured I was going to write this book without his help — what we call, in the business, a write-around profile. I've done plenty of those over my career, and I figured this would just be one more. Over time, as I made more and more calls, he opened up a little bit. And [eventually,] he was generous to sit down with me several times for long interviews and share his thoughts with me. Has he responded to the finished book at all? No. He did tweet about the project, about his decision to participate with it, but he was very clear that he was never going to read it. It's the same way that I don't like to watch my TV appearances or podcasts that I'm on. In the book, he's described as this emblematic Silicon Valley figure. What do you think are the key characteristics that make him representative of the Valley and the tech industry? In the beginning, I think it was that he was young. The Valley really glorifies youth, and he was 19 years old when he started his first startup. You see him going into these meetings with people twice his age, doing deals with telecom operators for his first startup, and no one could get over that this kid was so smart. The other is that he is a once-in-a-generation fundraising talent, and that's really about being a storyteller. I don't think it's an accident that you have essentially a salesman and a fundraiser at the top of the most important AI company today, That ties into one of the questions that runs through the book — this question about Altman's trustworthiness. Can you say more about the concerns people seem to have about that? To what extent is he a trustworthy figure? Well, he's a salesman, so he's really excellent at getting in a room and convincing people that he can see the future and that he has something in common with them. He gets people to share his vision, which is a rare talent. There are people who've watched that happen a bunch of times, who think, 'Okay, what he says does not always map to reality,' and have, over time, lost trust in him. This happened both at his first startup and very famously at OpenAI, as well as at Y Combinator. So it is a pattern, but I think it's a typical critique of people who have the salesman skill set. So it's not necessarily that he's particularly untrustworthy, but it's part-and-parcel of being a salesman leading these important companies. I mean, there also are management issues that are detailed in the book, where he is not great at dealing with conflict, so he'll basically tell people what they want to hear. That causes a lot of sturm-und-drang in the management ranks, and it's a pattern. Something like that happened at Loopt, where the executives asked the board to replace him as CEO. And you saw it happen at OpenAI as well. You've touched on Altman's firing, which was also covered in a book excerpt that was published in the Wall Street Journal. One of the striking things to me, looking back at it, was just how complicated everything was — all the different factions within the company, all the people who seemed pro-Altman one day and then anti-Altman the next. When you pull back from the details, what do you think is the bigger significance of that incident? The very big picture is that the nonprofit governance structure is not stable. You can't really take investment from the likes of Microsoft and a bunch of other investors and then give them absolutely no say whatsoever in the governance of the company. That's what they have tried to do, but I think what we saw in that firing is how power actually works in the world. When you have stakeholders, even if there's a piece of paper that says they have no rights, they still have power. And when it became clear that everyone in the company was going to go to Microsoft if they didn't reinstate Sam Altman, they reinstated Sam Altman. In the book, you take the story up to maybe the end of 2024. There have been all these developments since then, which you've continued to report on, including this announcement that actually, they're not fully converting to a for-profit. How do you think that's going to affect OpenAI going forward? It's going to make it harder for them to raise money, because they basically had to do an about-face. I know that the new structure going forward of the public benefit corporation is not exactly the same as the current structure of the for-profit — it is a little bit more investor friendly, it does clarify some of those things. But overall, what you have is a nonprofit board that controls a for-profit company, and that fundamentally unstable arrangement is what led to the so-called Blip. And I think you would continue to give investors pause, going forward, if they are going to have so little control over their investment. Obviously, OpenAI is still such a capital intensive business. If they have challenges raising more money, is that an existential question for the company? It absolutely could be. My research into Sam suggests that he might well be up to that challenge. But success is not guaranteed. Like you said, there's a dual perspective in the book that's partly about who Sam is, and partly about what that says about where AI is going from here. How did that research into his particular story shape the way you now look at these broader debates about AI and society? I went down a rabbit hole in the beginning of the book, [looking] into Sam's father, Jerry Altman, in part because I thought it was striking how he'd been written out of basically every other thing that had ever been written about Sam Altman. What I found in this research was a very idealistic man who was, from youth, very interested in these public-private partnerships and the power of the government to set policy. He ended up having an impact on the way that affordable housing is still financed to this day. And when I traced Sam's development, I saw that he has long believed that the government should really be the one that is funding and guiding AI research. In the early days of OpenAI, they went and tried to get the government to invest, as he's publicly said, and it didn't work out. But he looks back to these great mid-20th century labs like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs, which are private, but there was a ton of government money running through and supporting that ecosystem. And he says, 'That's the right way to do it.' Now I am watching daily as it seems like the United States is summoning the forces of state capitalism to get behind Sam Altman's project to build these data centers, both in the United States and now there was just one last week announced in Abu Dhabi. This is a vision he has had for a very, very long time. My sense of the vision, as he presented it earlier, was one where, on the one hand, the government is funding these things and building this infrastructure, and on the other hand, the government is also regulating and guiding AI development for safety purposes. And it now seems like the path being pursued is one where they're backing away from the safety side and doubling down on the government investment side. Absolutely. Isn't it fascinating? You talk about Sam as a political figure, as someone who's had political ambitions at different times, but also somebody who has what are in many ways traditionally liberal political views while being friends with folks like — at least early on — Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. And he's done a very good job of navigating the Trump administration. What do you think his politics are right now? I'm not sure his actual politics have changed, they are pretty traditionally progressive politics. Not completely — he's been critical about things like cancel culture, but in general, he thinks the government is there to take tax revenue and solve problems. His success in the Trump administration has been fascinating because he has been able to find their one area of overlap, which is the desire to build a lot of data centers, and just double down on that and not talk about any other stuff. But this is one area where, in some ways, I feel like Sam Altman has been born for this moment, because he is a deal maker and Trump is a deal maker. Trump respects nothing so much as a big deal with a big price tag on it, and that is what Sam Altman is really great at. You open and close the book not just with Sam's father, but with his family as a whole. What else is worth highlighting in terms of how his upbringing and family shapes who he is now? Well, you see both the idealism from his father and also the incredible ambition from his mother, who was a doctor, and had four kids and worked as a dermatologist. I think both of these things work together to shape him. They also had a more troubled marriage than I realized going into the book. So I do think that there's some anxiety there that Sam himself is very upfront about, that he was a pretty anxious person for much of his life, until he did some meditation and had some experiences. And there's his current family — he just had a baby and got married not too long ago. As a young gay man, growing up in the Midwest, he had to overcome some challenges, and I think those challenges both forged him in high school as a brave person who could stand up and take on a room as a public speaker, but also shaped his optimistic view of the world. Because, on that issue, I paint the scene of his wedding: That's an unimaginable thing from the early '90s, or from the '80s when he was born. He's watched society develop and progress in very tangible ways, and I do think that that has helped solidify his faith in progress. Something that I've found writing about AI is that the different visions being presented by people in the field can be so diametrically opposed. You have these wildly utopian visions, but also these warnings that AI could end the world. It gets so hyperbolic that it feels like people are not living in the same reality. Was that a challenge for you in writing the book? Well, I see those two visions — which feel very far apart — actually being part of the same vision, which is that AI is super important, and it's going to completely transform everything. No one ever talks about the true opposite of that, which is, 'Maybe this is going to be a cool enterprise tool, another way to waste time on the internet, and not quite change everything as much as everyone thinks.' So I see, I see the doomers and the boomers feeding off each other and being part of the same sort of hype universe. As a journalist and as a biographer, you don't necessarily come down on one side or the other — but actually, can you say where you come down on that? Well, I will say that I find myself using it a lot more recently, because it's gotten a lot better. In the early stages, when I was researching the book, I was definitely a lot more skeptical of its transformative economic power. I'm less skeptical now, because I just use it a lot more.
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The Optimist by Keach Hagey review – inside the mind of the man who brought us ChatGPT
On 30 November 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted the following, characteristically reserving the use of capital letters for his product's name: 'today we launched ChatGPT. try talking with it here: In a reply to himself immediately below, he added: 'language interfaces are going to be a big deal, i think'. If Altman was aiming for understatement, he succeeded. ChatGPT became the fastest web service to hit 1 million users, but more than that, it fired the starting gun on the AI wars currently consuming big tech. Everything is about to change beyond recognition, we keep being told, though no one can agree on whether that will be for good or ill. This moment is just one of many skilfully captured in Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey's biography of Altman, who, like his company, was then virtually unknown outside of the industry. He is a confounding figure throughout the book, which charts his childhood, troubled family life, his first failed startup Loopt, his time running the startup incubator Y Combinator, and the founding of OpenAI. Altman, short, slight, Jewish and gay, appears not to fit the typical mould of the tech bro. He is known for writing long, earnest essays about the future of humankind, and his reputation was as more of an arch-networker and money-raiser than an introverted coder in a hoodie. OpenAI, too, was supposed to be different from other tech giants: it was set up as a not-for-profit, committed by its charter to work collaboratively to create AI for humanity's benefit, and made its code publicly available. Altman would own no shares in it. He could commit to this, as he said in interviews, because he was already rich – his net worth is said to be around $1.5bn (£1.13bn) – as a result of his previous investments. It was also made possible because of his hyper-connectedness: as Hagey tells it, Altman met his software engineer husband Oliver Mulherin in the hot tub of PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel at 3am, when Altman, 29, was already a CEO, and Mulherin was a 21-year-old student. Thiel was a significant mentor to Altman, but not nearly so central to the story of OpenAI as another notorious Silicon Valley figure – Elon Musk. The Tesla and SpaceX owner was an initial co-founder and major donor to the not-for-profit version of OpenAI, even supplying its office space in its early years. That relationship has soured into mutual antipathy – Musk is both suing OpenAI and offering (somewhat insincerely) to buy it – as Altman radically altered the company's course. First, its commitment to releasing code publicly was ditched. Then, struggling to raise funds, it launched a for-profit subsidiary. Soon, both its staff and board worried the vision of AI for humanity was being lost amid a rush to create widely used and lucrative products. This leads to the book's most dramatic sections, describing how OpenAI's not-for-profit board attempted an audacious ousting of Altman as CEO, only for more than 700 of the company's 770 engineers to threaten to resign if he was not reinstated. Within five days, Altman was back, more powerful than ever. OpenAI has been toying with becoming a purely private company. And Altman turns out to be less of an anomaly in Silicon Valley than he once seemed. Like its other titans, he seems to be prepping for a potential doomsday scenario, with ranch land and remote properties. He is set to take stock in OpenAI after all. He even appears to share Peter Thiel's supposed interest in the potential for transfusions of young blood to slow down ageing. The Optimist serves to remind us that however unprecedented the consequences of AI models might be, the story of their development is a profoundly human one. Altman is the great enigma at its core, seemingly acting with the best of intentions, but also regularly accused of being a skilled and devious manipulator. For students of the lives of big tech's other founders, a puzzling question remains: in a world of 8 billion human beings, why do the stories of the people wreaking such huge change in our world end up sounding so eerily alike?
Time of India
25-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
OpenAI's Sam Altman reveals vision for AI's future: Could ChatGPT-5 become an all-powerful AGI 'smarter than us'?
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, envisions the future of AI with advancements from GPT-4 to GPT-5, aiming for a unified model that integrates voice, video, and multi-tasking capabilities. OpenAI's goal is to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), capable of thinking critically and using various tools. Altman's vision promises a revolutionary shift in AI's potential and integration. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, envisions a future where AI models like ChatGPT evolve into an integrated Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). In a viral video, Altman discussed the leap from GPT-4 to GPT-5, emphasizing the integration of various AI functions like voice, video, and search. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The Leap from GPT-4 to GPT-5: A Game-Changer The Next Big Milestone: Integration Pushing Toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Sam Altman: A Pioneer in the AI Revolution Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads ChatGPT: A World-Changing Technology The Road Ahead: Can We Keep Up? As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the world, Sam Altman , CEO of OpenAI , has set his sights on even greater horizons for the ChatGPT technology that has already left a lasting impact. A recent video shared on Instagram by chatgptricks offers a glimpse into Altman's vision for the future of AI, leaving viewers intrigued and excited about what's to the short video clip, Altman discussed the evolution of the GPT series, noting how GPT-3's capabilities took the world by surprise. He believes that the transition from GPT-4 to GPT-5 will be a similar leap. As these models grow increasingly intelligent, Altman foresees a point where they may surpass human intellect. 'Maybe by the time we reach GPT-5 or GPT-6, we'll be asking if it's already smarter than us,' he remarked, hinting at the rapid pace of development in AI technology For Altman, the next major hurdle is integration. While AI models like GPT-4 already exhibit impressive intelligence, Altman believes there is a need for a unified model capable of doing it all. "Can we have one model that knows when to search the web, when to write code, or even switch to voice mode?" he asks, envisioning a future where AI seamlessly transitions between different functions, like a true ambitious goal of OpenAI is to create a singular, integrated model that does everything—a step toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Altman referred to this as the 'AGI model,' one that could adapt to tasks, think critically, and use every tool available. 'We want one model that integrates all capabilities, knowing when to think deeply or when to take action,' he explained. The integration of voice, video, and other features would elevate AI to a new level of Altman is no stranger to shaking up the tech world. Born in 1985, Altman made his mark as the co-founder of Loopt, a mobile social networking service, before diving into the world of artificial intelligence. He took the reins at OpenAI in 2019 and has since been a key figure in pushing the boundaries of what AI can vision for OpenAI's future goes beyond just launching new models; he aims to revolutionize how humans interact with AI. With a net worth of $1.5 billion as of 2025, he continues to drive both technological advancements and public discourse on AI's potential. Notably, Altman has been involved in high-profile discussions about AI regulation and ethics, testifying before the U.S. Senate in its debut, OpenAI's ChatGPT has become a cultural and technological sensation. With its ability to generate human-like responses and assist with tasks ranging from writing to research, ChatGPT has catalyzed the AI boom. By January 2023, it was the fastest-growing consumer software application, with over 102 million users in just two months. Now integrated into platforms like Microsoft and soon Apple, ChatGPT has become a household name, transforming industries and everyday AI continues to evolve, the question remains: Can we manage its growing intelligence and integration responsibly? While Altman's vision of an all-encompassing AGI is captivating, it also raises concerns about the potential risks of such advanced technology. As we look ahead to GPT-5 and beyond, the world waits to see how this groundbreaking technology will shape our comments have sparked a blend of excitement and caution, with many wondering if AI will reach a point where it no longer just assists but begins to outperform human abilities. Whether you're an AI enthusiast or a skeptic, one thing is clear: the future of ChatGPT is set to be nothing short of revolutionary.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Definition of Sam Altman
Credit - Getty Images This article is published by a partner of TIME. Sam Altman is a prominent entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader in the fields of technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and venture capital. Born on April 22, 1985, in St. Louis, Missouri, Altman developed an early interest in computers and programming. Over the years, he has built a reputation as a visionary figure in Silicon Valley, especially due to his leadership roles at Y Combinator (YC) and OpenAI, two organizations that have had profound impacts on the startup ecosystem and the AI landscape, respectively. His career spans a wide range of industries and has been characterized by his deep interest in the future of technology and its potential to shape society. Altman co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile app, in 2005 when he was 20 years old. The app aimed to help users share their locations with friends and discover new places nearby. Loopt raised over $30 million in venture capital and was one of the early pioneers in the location-based app space. Despite its initial promise, Loopt struggled to achieve widespread user adoption and eventually faced stiff competition from apps like Foursquare and Facebook's location services. In 2012, Loopt was acquired by Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million. While Loopt did not achieve the runaway success that some other startups did, it marked Altman's first major venture and provided him with valuable experience in the startup world. Sam Altman's involvement with Y Combinator (YC), a leading startup accelerator, began when Loopt was accepted into the program's early cohort in 2005. After his experience as a YC-backed founder, Altman stayed connected with the organization and quickly became a key figure in its leadership. In 2014, Altman was appointed president of Y Combinator, taking over from co-founder Paul Graham. Under Altman's leadership, YC grew significantly, both in terms of the number of companies it supported and its influence in the tech industry. He expanded YC's scope, launching programs like YC Continuity, which provides later-stage funding for YC-backed companies, and YC Research, which focuses on long-term technology research with a societal impact. During his tenure, YC backed companies that went on to become tech giants, such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Stripe, and Coinbase. Altman was instrumental in creating a supportive environment for founders, emphasizing the importance of solving big problems and building products that could change the world. Altman also made headlines in 2015 when he publicly shared his belief that the total valuation of YC-backed companies would exceed $1 trillion, a milestone that was later achieved. Altman's role at YC solidified his reputation as a key player in Silicon Valley. Perhaps Sam Altman's most significant and ambitious venture has been his work with OpenAI, an organization dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence in a safe and beneficial manner. OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by Altman, along with Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba. The organization was initially structured as a non-profit research lab with the mission of ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. Altman's vision for OpenAI was to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a form of AI that could perform any intellectual task that a human can. This ambitious goal set OpenAI apart from other AI research organizations that were primarily focused on narrow, task-specific AI systems. Under Altman's leadership, OpenAI made rapid strides in AI research and development. The organization developed a series of increasingly powerful AI models, including the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series, which demonstrated the potential for AI to generate human-like text based on prompts. GPT-3, released in 2020, was particularly groundbreaking due to its size and capabilities, leading to widespread use in applications like content generation, chatbots, and coding assistants. In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from a non-profit to a 'capped-profit' model, which allowed it to attract more investment while still adhering to its mission of ensuring AI's benefits are shared broadly. This transition enabled OpenAI to enter into a strategic partnership with Microsoft, which invested $10 billion+ into the organization and provided access to its Azure cloud computing platform. In 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, which pushed the boundaries of AI capabilities even further. Altman's leadership has made OpenAI one of the most important organizations in the AI space, and its advancements in language models, robotics, and reinforcement learning have shaped the future of AI. OpenAI subsequently released GPT-4o. In October of 2024, Open AI raised a $6.6 billion funding round at a $157 billion valuation. Beyond his work at YC and OpenAI, Sam Altman has been involved in several other projects and investments: Nuclear Energy: Altman is an advocate for nuclear energy and has invested in nuclear fusion startups such as Helion Energy, which is working to develop safe, sustainable, and affordable fusion power. Biosecurity: Altman has expressed concern about biosecurity risks and has supported initiatives focused on mitigating the dangers posed by pandemics and other biological threats. Cryptocurrency: Altman has been involved in cryptocurrency projects and has made investments in blockchain-related startups. He is known for his interest in how decentralized technologies can reshape industries. Investments: Altman has been an early investor in companies like Stripe, Reddit, Pinterest, Airbnb, and Asana, among others. His investment philosophy is centered on supporting ambitious founders working on world-changing technologies. Altman has built relationships with several key figures in technology and venture capital: Elon Musk: Co-founder of OpenAI, though Musk later distanced himself from the organization and sued OpenAI.. Microsoft: Strategic partner and investor in OpenAI.. Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn co-founder and key supporter of Altman's ventures. Venture Capital Firms: YC-backed companies have attracted investments from top-tier venture firms like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund. Sam Altman has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the tech world, with a career that spans entrepreneurship, venture capital, and artificial intelligence. His leadership at Y Combinator and OpenAI has made a lasting impact on the startup ecosystem and the future of AI. Copyright © by All Rights Reserved Contact us at letters@ Sign in to access your portfolio
