Sam Altman

Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor, former CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, and creator of Worldcoin.

Personal Stats

Sam Altman Biography

Sam Altman was born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois to a Jewish family. However, he spent his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sam Altman Education 

He attended John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, Missouri. In 2005, he entered Stanford University, where he majored in computer science for a year before dropping out. In 2017, Altman received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo for his support of companies through the Velocity program.

Sam Altman Career

At the age of 19, Altman already became the CEO and co-founder of Loopt. It is a mobile app for social networks to determine location. Despite the fact that Altman managed to raise 30 million dollars for the development of Loopt, the app was not widely used by users. In March 2012, Altman sold the app to Green Dot for $43.4 million. A short time later, Sam and his brother Jack founded Hydrazine Capital.

Fun fact: Altman was Reddit's CEO for eight days in 2014 before being named president at Y Combinator, where he had worked part-time since 2011. Under his leadership, the company grew significantly and reached a valuation of $65 billion.

Just a year later, in 2015, Altman created the $700 million equity fund YC Continuity, as well as the nonprofit research lab Y Combinator Research, with $10 million in donations.

In 2019, Altman moved from the role of president to board chair so that he could focus on his work at OpenAI.

Before OpenAI, Sam started developing the Worldcoin crypto project, co-founding Tools For Humanity. However, the project came out later than OpenAI. The project deals with the creation of a global iris-based biometric system using the Worldcoin cryptocurrency of the same name.

In 2015, Sam Altman along with Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, along with Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research invested in OpenAI. In total, the company has raised $1 billion. In 2019, Altman left Y Combinator to focus on OpenAI and had time to introduce the revolutionary ChatGPT product. On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was unexpectedly fired as CEO. The board of directors stated that they were not confident in Altman's ability to further lead the company. Altman told investors that he was going to start a new company focused on AI development, However, there were reports that the OpenAI board of directors discussed bringing Altman back as CEO. Nevertheless, the post was taken up by former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. According to some reports, Altman, and his OpenAI colleague Greg Brockman will join Microsoft's new Advanced AI research team.

Altman is also chairman of the board of directors of nuclear fusion company Helion and nuclear fission company Oklo.

Sam Altman Personal Life

Sam Altman is unmarried, but according to some media reports is in a relationship with Australian software engineer Oliver Mulherin. Altman has been a vegetarian since childhood. His interest in technology was sparked at the age of eight when he got his first computer, an Apple Macintosh. In September 2023, the Indonesian government granted Sam Altman a special "golden visa" that allows him to stay in the country for ten years. In 2018, Altman announced The United Slate, a political project to improve housing and health policy. In 2023, he embarked on a world tour that visited 22 countries and met with numerous leaders and diplomats. That same year, Time named Altman one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

What Is Sam Altman Net Worth?

Altman is dedicated to investing in large companies. His portfolio includes shares of such companies as Airbnb, Stripe and Retro Biosciences. Sam Altman's net worth is estimated at 600-700 million dollars.

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