Samuel Harris Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor who has served as chief executive officer of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, since 2019. Before OpenAI, he founded the location-sharing startup Loopt as a Stanford dropout, worked as a venture capitalist, and served as president of the startup accelerator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019.
Altman briefly became the center of one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched corporate governance episodes in November 2023, when OpenAI’s board fired him, only to reinstate him five days later following an employee revolt and pressure from major investors, including Microsoft.
Quick Facts
| Quick Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Samuel Harris Altman |
| Date of Birth | April 22, 1985 |
| Age | 41 years, 6 months, 3 days |
| Place of Birth | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Profession | Entrepreneur, investor |
| Known For | CEO of OpenAI; former President of Y Combinator; co-founder of Loopt |
| Education | John Burroughs School, St. Louis; Stanford University (Computer Science, attended 2003 to 2005, did not graduate) |
| Companies | OpenAI (co-founder, CEO); Loopt (co-founder, former CEO); Hydrazine Capital (co-founder); Y Combinator (former President) |
| Major Position(s) | CEO of OpenAI (since 2019); Chairman of Helion Energy |
| Spouse/Partner | Oliver Mulherin, married January 2024 |
| Children | One son, born 2025 |
| Net Worth | Estimated between $2 billion and $3.3 billion as of 2026 (see Net Worth section) |
Who Is Sam Altman?
Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur best known as the chief executive of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company whose ChatGPT chatbot, released in November 2022, became one of the fastest-growing software applications in history and helped ignite a global wave of investment and public interest in generative AI. Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and several other technology figures, initially structuring it as a nonprofit research lab before establishing a capped-profit subsidiary in 2019 to raise the capital needed to compete in large-scale AI development.
Before OpenAI, Altman built his reputation within Silicon Valley first as a Stanford dropout who founded Loopt, a location-sharing app, and later as president of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator that helped launch companies including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe during his tenure. He is a prolific angel investor whose personal wealth is built almost entirely from a large portfolio of startup investments rather than equity in OpenAI itself, a company in which he has repeatedly stated he holds no direct ownership stake.
Early Life and Childhood
Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the St. Louis, Missouri, suburb of Clayton, the eldest of four children of Jerry Altman, a real estate broker who died in May 2018, and Connie Gibstine, a dermatologist. He received his first computer, an Apple Macintosh, at age eight and quickly began learning to write and take apart software and hardware, an early technical curiosity that carried through the rest of his childhood.
Altman has spoken publicly about coming out as gay while still in high school, describing the experience in later interviews and public speeches as a formative one that shaped his broader outlook on individuality and risk-taking.
Education
Altman attended the John Burroughs School, a private preparatory school in Ladue, Missouri, before enrolling at Stanford University to study computer science. He left Stanford in 2005, during his sophomore year, without completing his degree, in order to pursue Loopt, the company he co-founded with several Stanford classmates, full time.
Altman has spoken about his decision to leave Stanford as a calculated risk rather than an impulsive one, made with the understanding that the university would likely permit him to return if the startup failed, a safety net that factored into his decision-making at the time.
Early Career
Altman co-founded Loopt in 2005 while still a Stanford undergraduate, building a mobile application that allowed users to share their real-time location with friends. Loopt became one of the first companies to receive funding from Y Combinator, then a newly launched startup accelerator, giving Altman an early, formative connection to the organization he would later come to lead.
Loopt secured partnerships with wireless carriers, including Sprint, but ultimately struggled to attract a large enough user base to succeed as a standalone consumer product. The company was acquired by Green Dot Corporation in 2012 for approximately $43.4 million, giving Altman his first significant financial return and the capital to begin a new phase of his career as an investor.
Entrepreneurial Journey
Following Loopt’s sale, Altman began working part-time as a partner at Y Combinator in 2011 and, the following year, co-founded Hydrazine Capital, a venture fund, with his brother Max Altman. His growing involvement with Y Combinator culminated in his appointment as the organization’s president in 2014, succeeding co-founder Paul Graham. During his five years leading Y Combinator, the accelerator’s portfolio grew substantially, and by the time Altman stepped down in 2019, it had backed nearly 1,900 companies, including Airbnb, Instacart, DoorDash, Reddit, and Twitch.
In December 2015, Altman co-founded OpenAI alongside Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and other technology figures, initially structured as a nonprofit research organization focused on developing artificial intelligence for the broad benefit of humanity, funded with an initial $1 billion in pledged contributions from Altman, Musk, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services, and others. Altman left Y Combinator entirely in 2020 to focus on OpenAI full time, and became the company’s chief executive officer in 2019.
Major Companies and Ventures
OpenAI: Co-founded by Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab, OpenAI established a capped-profit subsidiary in 2019 to attract the large-scale capital investment needed for frontier AI development, and released ChatGPT in November 2022, a chatbot that became one of the fastest-growing consumer software applications in history. OpenAI’s valuation climbed from approximately $29 billion in early 2023 to roughly $300 billion following a March 2025 funding round led by SoftBank, and to approximately $825 billion by April 2026. Altman has served as CEO since 2019, aside from a brief five-day removal in November 2023.
Y Combinator: Altman served as president of the prominent Silicon Valley startup accelerator from 2014 to 2019, overseeing the growth of its portfolio and its expansion into new program formats, including Y Combinator Research, a nonprofit research initiative he personally funded with an initial $10 million donation in 2015.
Loopt: Co-founded by Altman in 2005 while at Stanford, Loopt was among the earliest location-sharing mobile applications and one of Y Combinator’s first funded companies. It was acquired by Green Dot Corporation in 2012 for approximately $43.4 million.
Worldcoin (World): A cryptocurrency and digital identity project co-founded by Altman that uses iris-scanning technology to verify unique human identity, intended to support a global system for distributing value in an economy increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, though the project has faced regulatory bans and privacy-related restrictions in several countries.
Technology and Innovation
Altman’s most significant contribution to technology has come through his leadership of OpenAI’s strategic direction rather than direct engineering work, positioning the company at the center of the generative AI wave that began with ChatGPT’s late 2022 release. Under his leadership, OpenAI has developed successive generations of its GPT large language models, and the company has increasingly framed its long-term mission around the pursuit of artificial general intelligence, AI systems capable of matching or exceeding human capability across a broad range of cognitive tasks, a goal Altman has described as central to the company’s founding purpose.
Beyond OpenAI itself, Altman has personally invested substantial capital in nuclear energy technology, serving as chairman of Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion company, and holding an investment position in Oklo, a nuclear fission startup, reflecting his stated view that AI’s future computing demands will require substantial new sources of clean, reliable energy.
Major Products, Projects and Achievements
ChatGPT, released in November 2022, became the fastest-growing consumer software application in history at the time of its launch, reaching 100 million users within two months and prompting a wave of competing chatbot launches from Google, Microsoft, and numerous startups. OpenAI’s continued release of successive GPT model generations under Altman’s leadership has kept the company positioned as one of the most closely watched participants in the broader AI industry, alongside competitors including Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta.
OpenAI’s valuation growth under Altman, from roughly $29 billion in early 2023 to approximately $825 billion by April 2026, reflects one of the most rapid escalations in private company valuation in the history of the technology industry, driven substantially by continued large-scale investment from Microsoft, SoftBank, and other backers.
Leadership and Management
Altman’s leadership of OpenAI has been shaped significantly by the events of November 2023, when the company’s board fired him on November 17, citing a breakdown in trust regarding his candor with the board, without providing detailed public justification at the time. The move triggered an immediate and forceful backlash from OpenAI employees, the substantial majority of whom threatened to resign in protest, along with pressure from major investor Microsoft; Altman was reinstated as CEO on November 22, and an internal investigation later concluded he had been wrongly terminated. He rejoined OpenAI’s board in March 2024 alongside several new directors.
This episode remains a significant reference point in assessments of Altman’s leadership style, with subsequent reporting and legal proceedings, including testimony in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against him, continuing to raise questions from some observers regarding conflicts of interest tied to his extensive personal investment holdings in companies that do business with OpenAI.
Investments and Business Interests
Unlike many chief executives of comparably valued companies, Altman holds no direct equity stake in OpenAI itself; a proposal reported in 2024 to grant him a roughly 7 percent ownership stake was ultimately not implemented, and OpenAI’s October 2025 corporate recapitalization closed without any equity grant to him. Instead, the substantial majority of his personal wealth comes from a large portfolio of outside venture investments built up over more than a decade, including an early 2 percent stake in Stripe purchased for $15,000 in 2009, an 8.7 percent stake in Reddit disclosed in that company’s 2024 IPO filing, and positions in companies including Airbnb, Asana, Pinterest, Helion Energy, and Oklo.
Court filings from Musk’s 2024 lawsuit against Altman disclosed that several of his largest personal holdings, including Helion, Stripe, and the AI chip company Cerebras, have direct business relationships with OpenAI, a structure that has drawn scrutiny from some state attorneys general and other observers regarding potential conflicts of interest given his simultaneous role as OpenAI’s chief executive.
Awards and Recognition
Altman was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2023, recognition tied to ChatGPT’s rapid rise and his central role in the broader generative AI boom that followed. Forbes named him a top investor under 30 in 2015, recognition from earlier in his career tied to his venture investing rather than his later work at OpenAI.
He has also been the subject of extensive media commentary comparing him to earlier generations of prominent technology founders, including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, comparisons that reflect his public profile and influence within the AI industry rather than a formal award or honor.
Personal Life
Sam Altman is openly gay and was in a roughly nine-year relationship with Nick Sivo, his Loopt co-founder, which ended shortly after Loopt’s 2012 acquisition. He married Oliver Mulherin, an Australian software engineer, in a ceremony in Hawaii on January 10, 2024. The couple’s first child, a son, was born in early 2025.
Altman has described himself as a vegetarian since childhood and has spoken in interviews about his interest in poker, which he has credited with sharpening his ability to read patterns in people’s behavior and make decisions under conditions of incomplete information.
Family
Altman is the eldest of four children born to Jerry Altman, a real estate broker who died in 2018, and Connie Gibstine, a dermatologist. His brothers, Jack and Max Altman, have both pursued careers in technology and venture investing, including Max’s role co-founding Hydrazine Capital alongside Sam. His sister, Ann “Annie” Altman, has been involved in a significant and publicly documented legal dispute with her brother, discussed in the Controversies section below.
Philanthropy and Social Impact
Altman personally funded Y Combinator Research, a nonprofit research initiative, with an initial $10 million donation in 2015, supporting studies on topics including universal basic income, the future of computing, and education policy. His broader philanthropic activity has been closely tied to his professional interests in technology policy and long-term societal questions raised by AI development, including funding for a widely discussed basic income research study exploring the effects of unconditional cash payments.
His investment in nuclear energy companies including Helion and Oklo, while structured as for-profit investments rather than traditional philanthropy, reflects a stated personal interest in addressing the clean energy infrastructure challenges he has argued will be necessary to support continued AI development at scale.
Controversies and Criticism
Altman’s November 2023 removal and reinstatement as OpenAI’s CEO remains the most closely examined governance episode of his career, exposing significant tension within OpenAI’s unusual nonprofit-controlled structure regarding oversight of its rapidly growing for-profit AI operations; an internal investigation later concluded his termination had been unwarranted, and he returned to the board in March 2024.
Separately, Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who left its board in 2018, sued Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI in early 2024, alleging the company had abandoned its founding nonprofit mission for a for-profit structure that enriched its founders and investors, including through OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft. The case went to trial in April 2026, and on May 18, 2026, a jury found Musk’s claims barred by the statute of limitations; the presiding judge dismissed the case on that basis, meaning the merits of Musk’s underlying allegations were never decided. Musk has stated he intends to appeal.
A separate and more personal legal matter emerged in January 2025, when Altman’s sister, Ann Altman, filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri alleging he sexually abused her repeatedly during her childhood. Altman, in a joint statement with his mother and two brothers, called the allegations “utterly untrue,” and the family stated they had provided Ann Altman with ongoing financial and medical support amid what they described as her ongoing mental health challenges; Altman subsequently filed a defamation countersuit against her over her public statements. As of the most recent reporting, the matter remains in active civil litigation with no factual findings made by any court, and this article presents the allegation and denial as documented in the case’s public record rather than as established fact in either direction.
Sam Altman Net Worth
Sam Altman’s net worth is estimated between approximately $2 billion and $3.3 billion as of 2026, according to differing figures from Bloomberg and Forbes, a relatively modest sum by the standards of chief executives whose companies have reached OpenAI’s scale, given that Altman holds no direct equity in OpenAI itself. Some aggregating trackers cite higher estimates closer to $5 billion, though these are not independently verified.
His wealth is built almost entirely from outside investments accumulated over more than a decade, including his roughly $15,000 investment in Stripe in 2009, now worth several hundred million dollars; his 8.7 percent stake in Reddit, disclosed in the company’s 2024 IPO filing; his position in Helion Energy, reported to exceed $1.6 billion in value; and stakes in several hundred additional startups built through his angel investing and Hydrazine Capital. Because many of these are private holdings without a public market price, and because his OpenAI equity situation remains unusual for a founding CEO of a company this size, any specific net worth figure attributed to him should be treated as an informed estimate rather than a precisely audited total.
Current Role and Recent Activities
As of 2026, Altman continues to serve as chief executive officer of OpenAI, directing the company’s continued AI model development and its rapidly expanding data center infrastructure investments amid intensifying competition from Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI. He also continues to chair Helion Energy and remains involved with World, his digital identity venture, which has continued to expand into new markets despite regulatory bans in several countries.
His most significant recent public activity has centered on navigating OpenAI’s continued corporate restructuring following its 2025 recapitalization, alongside his ongoing role as one of the most visible public commentators on the trajectory and risks of artificial general intelligence development.
Legacy and Influence
Sam Altman’s leadership of OpenAI during the release of ChatGPT and the broader generative AI boom that followed places him among the most consequential technology executives of the current decade, having played a central role in bringing large language model technology from a specialized research field into mainstream global public use within a remarkably short period. His earlier work leading Y Combinator also shaped a significant portion of Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem during his five years as its president, a period that produced several of the technology industry’s most commercially significant companies.
His unusual position atop a company reaching an estimated $825 billion valuation while holding no direct equity stake, combined with the governance controversy of his 2023 removal and reinstatement and the more recent litigation involving both Musk and his own sister, has made him a figure whose ultimate legacy remains genuinely unsettled and actively contested as of this writing, reflecting the broader uncertainty surrounding how the AI industry he now leads will itself be judged in the years ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Sam Altman? Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur who has served as CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, since 2019, and previously served as president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019.
How old is Sam Altman? He was born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois.
What company did Sam Altman found? He co-founded Loopt in 2005, Hydrazine Capital in 2012, and OpenAI in 2015, and served as president, not founder, of Y Combinator.
What is Sam Altman known for? He is known for leading OpenAI through the release of ChatGPT and the broader generative AI boom, and for his brief, high-profile removal and reinstatement as OpenAI’s CEO in November 2023.
What is Sam Altman’s net worth? Estimates for 2026 range from approximately $2 billion to $3.3 billion, built almost entirely from outside venture investments rather than OpenAI equity, which he does not hold.
Where did Sam Altman study? He studied computer science at Stanford University but left in 2005, during his sophomore year, without completing his degree, to build Loopt.
Is Sam Altman married? Yes, he married software engineer Oliver Mulherin in January 2024, and the couple had their first child in 2025.
Does Sam Altman own equity in OpenAI? No. He has stated repeatedly that he holds no direct ownership stake in OpenAI, and a proposed 2024 plan to grant him roughly 7 percent of the company was not implemented.
Sources
- Britannica Money, “Sam Altman | Biography, OpenAI, ChatGPT, & Microsoft”
- NBC News, “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denies sister’s sexual abuse allegations in lawsuit” (January 2025)
- NPR, “Jury dismisses all claims in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman” (May 2026)
- CNBC, “Elon Musk seeks ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as part of lawsuit” (April 2026)
- Wikipedia, “Sam Altman”
- DataWallet, “Sam Altman Net Worth” (June 2026)
- Companies History, “Sam Altman Net Worth 2026: Does He Own Any OpenAI Equity?”