Sam Altman

Sam Altman co-founded the location app Loopt in 2005, which was acquired by Green Dot. He became president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, during which time YC's portfolio grew dramatically. In 2019, he became CEO of OpenAI (originally a non-profit AI safety organization co-founded with Elon Musk). Under his leadership, OpenAI released GPT-3, GPT-4, DALL-E, and ChatGPT — which reached 100 million users in two months. The launch of ChatGPT triggered a global AI arms race and transformed technology investment priorities globally. Altman navigated a dramatic board crisis in November 2023, when the OpenAI board briefly removed him as CEO before investor and employee pressure led to his reinstatement within days — an episode that highlighted both his central importance to the organization and the unique governance tensions inherent in OpenAI's hybrid non-profit and commercial structure.