The news of his dismissal caught Silicon Valley by surprise, as the 38-year-old had been hailed as a pioneer and one of the leading figures in the high-stakes world of AI.
He said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his time at OpenAI had been "transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit."
Altman, together with Tesla chief Elon Musk and others, started OpenAI in 2015, creating a research company with the stated goal of building generative AI that benefits humanity.
"The technological progress we make in the next 100 years will be far larger than all we've made since we first controlled fire and invented the wheel," Altman said in a 2021 blog post.
- Startup guru -
Born in 1985, Altman grew up in a St. Louis suburb, where he got his first computer at the age of eight, according to a profile in the New Yorker from 2016.
Computers and access to an online community helped him navigate being gay in a conservative part of the country, Altman said in an interview with Esquire.
Like so many tech figures before him, Altman dropped out of Stanford University to start a company, Loopt, which let smartphone users selectively share their whereabouts.
Loopt was acquired in 2012 in a deal valued at $43.4 million -- and Altman's place in Silicon Valley was secured.
He took a year off during which he "read many dozens of textbooks; I learned about the fields that I had been interested in," the San Francisco resident wrote in a post.
He told of learning about nuclear engineering, synthetic biology, investing and AI.
"The seeds were planted for things that worked in deep ways later," he said.
- T-shirt and shorts -
In 2014, Altman became president of Y Combinator, an "accelerator" that provides startups with guidance and funding in exchange for stakes in the young companies.
Altman expanded Y Combinator's strategy for investing beyond software startups to biotech, energy and other fields.
"He thinks quickly and talks quickly; intense, but in a good way," said Industrial Microbes founder Derek Greenfield, who met Altman while his biotech startup was getting backing from Y Combinator.
Greenfield recalled Altman always dressing casually, sometimes in a T-shirt and shorts.
"He was very down to earth," Greenfield said.
Altman left Y Combinator, putting his energy into AI despite feared risks.
"He's a very deep thinker who is incredibly focused on getting things right," Insider Intelligence senior director of marketing and commerce Jeremy Goldman said.
Altman has proposed that combining artificial intelligence, robotics and cost-free energy could essentially enable machines to do all the work and provide a "basic income" to adults across society.
"A great future isn't complicated: we need technology to create more wealth, and policy to fairly distribute it," Altman wrote in a blog post.
"Everything necessary will be cheap, and everyone will have enough money to be able to afford it."
- 'Fast cars and survival' -
In the New Yorker article, Altman said he was a "prepper," someone who has preparations and supplies in place to survive an apocalyptic disaster.
He has spoken of owning high-performance sports cars and renting planes to fly around California.
Altman said in a blog post that on the last day of each December he writes a list of things he wants to accomplish in the year ahead.
His personal investments include startups working on fusion energy and human life extension.
"I'm super optimistic," he said in a podcast with TED curator Chris Anderson.
"It's always easy to doom scroll and think about how bad things are," Altman added, "but the good things are really good and getting much better."
But Altman has testified before the US Congress and spoken with heads of state about AI as pressure mounts to regulate the technology against risks, such as its potential use in bioweapons and misinformation.
Just hours before being fired on Friday, he told AFP on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco that we can't always predict the future.
"The dangerous thing... it's all the new stuff, the known unknowns, the unknown unknowns that are going to come," he said.
In shock move, OpenAI sacks ChatGPT star CEO Sam Altman
Washington (AFP) Nov 17, 2023 -
OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT a year ago, said Friday it had dismissed CEO Sam Altman in a shock firing of a central figure in the AI revolution.
Altman, 38, became a tech world sensation with the release of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot with unprecedented capabilities, churning out human-level content like poems or artwork in just seconds.
He quickly rose to become Silicon Valley's newest star, traveling the world to meet with political leaders and huge audiences fascinated by the promise and threats of AI.
His dismissal caught the tech world completely by surprise, with rumors rife on social media on what had caused the sudden sacking.
OpenAI's board said in a statement that Altman's departure "follows a deliberative review process," which concluded "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities."
"The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," it concluded.
In a post on X, Altman said he "loved my time at OpenAI."
"It was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit."
He said he would have "more to say about what's next later."
The launch of ChatGPT ignited a race in AI -- hailed as the next big chapter in technology -- with contenders including tech giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has woven the company's technology into its offerings, including search engine Bing.
Google, caught off guard, moved quickly to push out its own AI offerings, including the chatbot Bard.
Altman has testified before US Congress about AI and spoken with heads of state about the technology, as pressure ramps up to regulate against risks such as AI's potential use in bioweapons, misinformation and other threats.
The statement said the board was "grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward."
Altman would be replaced on an interim basis by Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, the statement said.
"We have a long-term partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft remains committed to Mira and their team as we bring this next era of AI to our customers," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to AFP.
- 'Lots of empathy' -
OpenAI's board of directors consists of OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology's Helen Toner.
The statement added that Greg Brockman, a close associate of Altman's, would step down as chairman of the board, but stay at the firm, reporting to the new CEO.
Altman earlier this month led a major developer's conference for OpenAI, announcing a new set of products that were largely met positively in Silicon Valley.
The young executive on Thursday told AFP he understood some of the worries over AI and its disruptive powers.
"(I have) lots of empathy for why anyone would feel, however they feel, about this," he said of the platform that is credited with launching the revolution in generative artificial intelligence.
Altman was speaking on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco where he was swarmed by fans after his appearance, many of whom wanted to take selfies with him.
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