Sam Altman

Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor who served as the president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, and as the CEO of OpenAI until November 2023. He co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking app. He now leads an advanced AI research team at Microsoft which he joined in November 2023.

Prior to taking over as Y Combinator's president, Altman was a part-time partner at Y Combinator. In addition to his investment in technology startups, he has shown particular interest in nuclear energy, serving as the chairman of the board for Helion and Oklo, nuclear fusion and fission companies.

Altman has consistently been recognized for his entrepreneurship. He was featured in Inc. Magazine's Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30, BusinessWeek's Tech's Best Entrepreneurs, Forbes' 30 Under 30, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023. His contributions to the LGBTQ community were acknowledged when he received the Ric Weiland Award from GLAAD.

As an early innovator in mobile location services, Altman joined Apple CEO Steve Jobs on stage in 2008, presenting Loopt as one of the first applications in the iPhone App Store. He also co-founded Tools For Humanity, a company building a global iris-based biometric system using a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin. Altman helped raise $1 billion from Microsoft for OpenAI and during the launch of Project Covalence to aid researchers in launching clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Altman has appeared on CNN, The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and numerous other media outlets.