Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, is making waves in the world of technology and AI. Altman’s journey began in Missouri, where he received his first computer at just eight years old. He quickly learned programming and went on to attend Stanford University for computer science, but dropped out after two years to launch his smartphone app, Loopt.
After selling Loopt for $44 million in 2012, Altman became president of Y Combinator before co-founding OpenAI in 2015 with Elon Musk and other tech giants. The company was initially run as a non-profit with the goal of developing AI while preventing it from posing a threat to humanity. However, the success of its generative AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E has led to OpenAI‘s estimated value increasing to up to $29 billion.
ChatGPT in particular has amassed tens of millions of users within weeks of launching and caught the attention of major tech players like Microsoft and Google. Governments are racing to regulate AI technologies, and Altman has been a vocal advocate for government intervention to mitigate the risks. This stance has helped him gain access to world leaders and help shape the conversation around AI regulation.
While Altman’s success can be attributed to his impressive entrepreneurial skills, his open dialogue about the potential dangers of AI has set him apart from some of his contemporaries.
