Sam Altman

Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor who co-founded OpenAI and serves as its chief executive. OpenAI is the research and product company behind ChatGPT and the GPT line of large language models, and Altman has become one of the most widely recognized figures in the technology industry as those systems have moved into broad public use.

Altman helped launch OpenAI in 2015 and became its chief executive in 2019. Earlier in his career he led Y Combinator, the accelerator that has funded thousands of startups, and he co-founded the location-based mobile company Loopt while still in his early twenties. Alongside his work at OpenAI, he has backed and chaired several other ventures spanning energy, identity, and hardware. His public biography is collected on his Wikipedia page, and OpenAI's leadership is described on the company's own site at openai.com.

Who Sam Altman is

Samuel Harris Altman was born in 1985 in Chicago and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied computer science at Stanford University but left before completing his degree to work on Loopt, a startup he co-founded that let users share their location with friends. The company raised venture funding and was later acquired, an early experience that drew him into the world of startup investing and company building.

He is based in San Francisco, California, where OpenAI is headquartered. Over the past decade he has shifted from running a single startup to overseeing one of the most closely followed organizations in artificial intelligence, and he speaks and writes regularly about where the technology is heading and how it should be developed and governed.

The Y Combinator years

Altman joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner in 2011 and became its president in 2014, a role he held until 2019. Y Combinator runs a twice-yearly program that funds early-stage companies and connects founders with mentors and later-stage investors, and during Altman's tenure it expanded the number of startups it backed each cycle.

Companies that passed through the accelerator before and during his leadership include well-known names in consumer and business software. His time leading the program gave him a broad view of how young companies are built and financed, and it placed him at the center of a large network of founders and investors that he carried into his later work at OpenAI.

Leading OpenAI

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a research organization focused on artificial intelligence, with Altman among its founding group. He took on the role of chief executive in 2019, around the time the organization adopted a structure that paired its original nonprofit with a capped-profit arm to raise the capital needed for large-scale model training. Under his leadership OpenAI released the GPT series of language models and, in late 2022, the ChatGPT assistant that brought the company to mass public attention.

In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Altman as chief executive, and within days he was reinstated following discussions involving employees, investors, and the board. He returned to the role of chief executive, and the board was subsequently reconstituted. As CEO, Altman sets the company's strategy, represents it publicly, and has testified before lawmakers about the development and oversight of advanced AI systems.

Other ventures and investments

Beyond OpenAI, Altman has been involved in several other companies. He chairs Tools for Humanity, the company behind Worldcoin, a project that pairs a digital identity system with a cryptocurrency and uses biometric verification to distinguish individual humans. He has described the effort as an attempt to build identity and financial infrastructure for a world with widely available AI.

He has also been a prominent investor in energy companies, including the nuclear fusion firm Helion Energy and the nuclear fission startup Oklo, the latter of which he chaired and took public through a special-purpose acquisition company. His investments span a range of technology and energy ventures, reflecting a long-running interest in companies he has framed as addressing large, foundational problems.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Sam Altman?

Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor who co-founded OpenAI and serves as its chief executive. The company builds ChatGPT and the GPT family of large language models.

What did Sam Altman do before OpenAI?

He was president of the startup accelerator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, and earlier in his career he co-founded the location-based mobile company Loopt. You can read more on his Wikipedia biography.

When did Sam Altman become CEO of OpenAI?

Altman became chief executive of OpenAI in 2019, having helped found the organization in 2015. In November 2023 he was briefly removed by the board and reinstated within days.

What other companies is Sam Altman involved with?

He chairs Tools for Humanity, the company behind the Worldcoin identity and cryptocurrency project, and has invested in energy ventures including the fusion company Helion Energy and the fission startup Oklo.

Where is Sam Altman based?

He is based in San Francisco, California, where OpenAI is headquartered. He was born in 1985 in Chicago and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.

Photo of Sam Altman speaking at TED by Steve Jurvetson, licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. For an overview of the AI landscape, see our guide to the best AI tools for business.