Photo: 首相官邸ホームページ / Office of the Prime Minister of Japan Official Website, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sam Altman
CEO, OpenAI
OpenAI (opens in a new tab)San Francisco, United States
Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT and GPT. In September 2026 he confirmed OpenAI would not pursue an IPO that year, voiced support for "pacing" frontier AI development so safety keeps pace with capability, and appeared before the UN Security Council to discuss AI governance.
How they got here
Before OpenAI, Altman was president of startup accelerator Y Combinator and earlier co-founded the location-sharing app Loopt. He has led OpenAI since its founding, including through its 2019 shift to a capped-profit structure and its 2023 board turmoil, after which the board affirmed his and Greg Brockman's continued leadership.
Public work
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