Sam Altman was born in Chicago and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He majored in Comp Sci at Stanford University. According to him he learned more from playing poker then he did from his professors. He spent his time practicing pattern searching and making decisions with limited knowledge. In 2005 he made his first app, which was an app by which friends could keep track of their friends. This first app brought Altman attention from higher up companies. It was in 2011 that Altman started as a part-time partner in the Y Combinator. Through this partnership the Y Combinator built up its repetition and business strategy. After his first year partnering he started another venture with his brother, Hydrazine Capital.
In 2015 OpenAI was launched as a social project. Altman was one of the CEOs involved with the creation and launch of OpenAI. Altman sourced a great deal of funding for this project, and was helped by his partner CEO Elon Musk, and entrepreneur Peter Thiel. Altman worked into a partnership, implementing OpenAI into Microsoft’s cloud serviced. Microsoft not owns 49% or OpenAI’s services and products. Altman, through OpenAI, launched ChatGPT in 2022.
By creating platforms for information searching, Altman opened up a new world of knowledge. Due to political pressures the board of OpenAI’s directors fired Altman for not being straightforward and honest in in his communications with them. This dismissal of Altman opened up questions in the workplace. The following days many insisted that they be fired along with Altman. Later Altman was hired by Microsoft to lead a team of researchers, delving into the mystery of AI. Altman has now returned to OpenAI and has gone through investigation to ensure the humanity and ethicists of his intent with AI information sharing.
I love how his path crossed with Peter Theil, the author of Zero to One that we’re reading for class! While I’d argue that school and classes are important, I do agree that there’s a lot we can learn outside of that too. It’s great that the startup accelerator helped encourage him to try another venture. Also, I admire that he persisted and was able to return to OpenAI, even after he had been fired unfairly.