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Sam Altman: Openai Chief Executive Officer

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Human Profile
Name:Samuel Harris Altman
Birthday:April 22, 1985 (age 40 years), Born in Chicago, Illinois
Education:John Burroughs School (Diploma)
Stanford University (Dropped Out), Computer Science

Overview

Samuel Harris Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor, widely known as the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, where he has overseen the development of generative artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT and the GPT series, and was notably briefly removed and reinstated as CEO; he previously served as president of Y Combinator.

Latest News (Feb 2, 2026): Sam Altman admitted during a January 26 livestreamed developer town hall that OpenAI "screwed up" the writing quality of GPT-5.2 by over-prioritizing technical reasoning, while newer reports revealed a secret "human-only" social network project. This proposed platform is reportedly being developed by a small team of fewer than 10 people and aims to eliminate bot accounts through biometric verification like Face ID or the World Orb, an announcement that triggered a 7.61% surge in the Worldcoin (WLD) token.

Early Life and Education

Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, in a Jewish family. His mother, Connie Gibstine, is a dermatologist, and his father, Jerry Altman, was a real estate broker. Altman is the eldest of four children, with two brothers, Max and Jack, and a sister, Annie. At the age of eight, he received his first computer, an Apple Macintosh, which sparked his interest in coding and hardware.

Altman attended John Burroughs School, a private preparatory school in Ladue, Missouri. After graduating, he enrolled at Stanford University to study computer science but dropped out after two years in 2005 to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.

Career Beginnings

In 2005, at the age of 19, Samuel Harris Altman co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application. The company, initially named Radiate, received its first funding from the startup accelerator Y Combinator. As CEO, Altman raised over $30 million in venture capital for Loopt. In March 2012, after failing to gain significant user traction, Loopt was acquired by Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.

Following the sale of Loopt, Altman became a partner at Y Combinator in 2011, initially on a part-time basis. In February 2014, he was named president of YC by its founder, Paul Graham. During his tenure, Altman aimed to expand the accelerator’s reach, with a goal of funding 1,000 new companies per year and broadening the scope to include “hard technology” startups. He also introduced new initiatives like YC Continuity, a fund for maturing YC companies, and Y Combinator Research, a non-profit research lab. In 2016, his role expanded to president of the newly formed YC Group, which encompassed Y Combinator and its other units.

Breakthrough with OpenAI

In December 2015, Samuel Harris Altman co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit research organization alongside several other prominent figures in the technology industry, including Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel. The organization was established with the mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. Initial funding pledges for OpenAI totaled $1 billion from its founders and backers like Amazon Web Services and Infosys.

Altman transitioned to become the full-time CEO of OpenAI in 2019, stepping away from his role at Y Combinator to focus on the artificial intelligence venture. In 2019, OpenAI also announced the creation of a for-profit subsidiary, OpenAI LP, to attract more capital for its computationally intensive research. This “capped-profit” model was designed to secure necessary funding while remaining governed by the original non-profit’s mission.

Leadership at OpenAI

Under Samuel Harris Altman’s leadership, OpenAI has launched several significant artificial intelligence models. The Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) series of language models saw major advancements, with GPT-2 and GPT-3 released in 2019 and 2020, respectively, showcasing powerful natural language understanding and generation capabilities.

A pivotal moment for the company and the AI field came on November 30, 2022, with the public release of ChatGPT, a conversational AI built on the GPT-3.5 architecture. The chatbot quickly gained widespread attention for its abilities and achieved over one million users within its first five days. The subsequent release of GPT-4 continued to push the boundaries of AI capabilities.

In November 2023, Altman was abruptly removed as CEO by OpenAI’s board, which stated he “was not consistently candid in his communications.” The decision led to a significant backlash from employees, with the vast majority signing a letter threatening to resign unless the board stepped down and reinstated Altman. Following intense negotiations and pressure from investors, Altman was reinstated as CEO five days later with a newly constituted board.

Impact and Personal Life

Samuel Harris Altman is a prominent investor in technology and energy startups. His portfolio includes companies like Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion research company, and Oklo Inc., which focuses on small nuclear reactors. He also co-founded Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project that uses iris scanning for identity verification. Through his investment firms, including Hydrazine Capital, which he co-founded with his brother Jack, he has invested in numerous startups.

Altman has been an advocate for universal basic income (UBI), suggesting that advancements in AI could generate the wealth to support such a program. He has also testified before the U.S. Senate on the need for AI oversight and regulation. In May 2024, Altman and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, signed The Giving Pledge, committing to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Altman is openly gay and married Oliver Mulherin, an Australian software engineer, in January 2024. They have a son, born in 2025. He has been a vegetarian since childhood and resides in San Francisco, California.