Who is Sam Altman?

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1985, Samuel "Sam" Harris Altman is an American Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist known for his fundamental role in promoting and innovating the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

From a very young age, Sam Altman began to show great mathematical and programming skills. Skills he demonstrated in St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended the prestigious private institute, John Burroughs School, where he graduated with honors and was named valedictorian of his class.

Following in the wake of his love for mathematical sciences, in 2003, he began studying Computer Science at the university level at Stanford University. But his concern to advance the development of real and useful solutions led him to leave the university and begin his path as a pioneer and creator of real solutions.

Career and pioneering contributions

This is where Sam Altman's career begins. A career characterized by an innovative and risk-driven spirit. Shortly after leaving Stanford University, Altman founded Loopt (2005), a smartphone application that provided real-time maps and personalized recommendations of nearby places. Despite initial success, the company was purchased by Green Dot Corporation (in 2012) for $43 million.

In 2011, Altman began working part-time as a partner at Y Combinator and the following year founded the venture fund Hydrazine Capital with his brother Max Altman. Y Combinator founders Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston asked Sam Altman to succeed Graham as president, and he accepted the position in 2014.

Under Altman's leadership, Y Combinator cemented its reputation as the premier place for startup founders to learn how to build a successful company. Y Combinator brings founders together twice a year for a three-month program during which they learn how to turn their ideas into a useful business. It also provides founders with $500.000 in funding in exchange for shares in their companies.

When Altman stepped down as president of YC in 2019, it had already helped about 1.900 companies, including the room rental service Airbnb, the delivery companies Instacart and DoorDash, the forum site Reddit, the storage site Dropbox and the Twitch streaming platform.

OpenAI and the future of Artificial Intelligence

By 2013, Altman became known as a leading proponent of the field of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning with his founding of Y Combinator (YC). In fact, it was this initial approach that gradually led him to form the team of researchers that would lead to the creation of OpenAI.

Thus, in February 2016, Sam Altman became president of this non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). OpenAI has made significant progress with projects such as GPT (currently with its GTP-3, GPT-3.5 Turbo, GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-4o models), a family of AI-based language models capable of generating text , images and sound (multimodal AI model, especially since GPT-4) that imitates human style.

OpenAI is also distinguished by its efforts to ensure the security and transparency of AI development through a series of projects such as «Elicitation«, which aims to extract valuable information from researchers about the current state and future perspectives in AI.

The struggles at OpenAI

Sam Altman's role at OpenAI is undoubtedly enormous, and he has had several relevant episodes. First, because in OpenAI, Sam Altman was not the only important figure, but there was also Elon Musk, who financially supported the foundation's activity, and at the same time, was the one who was looking for the engineers and teams behind the development of the same. All this, while Altman controlled and directed the development team.

This led to Musk and Altman having a series of discussions in 2018 that broke up that relationship. At the time, Musk told Altman that he should take control of OpenAI in order to catch up with Google (Musk thought Google was overtaking them in the field of AI). However, Altman rejected the proposal and Musk left OpenAI, putting the organization in a difficult position because Musk had been funding his work.

This led Altman to create OpenAI Global, LLC in 2019, a for-profit company that would serve to sustain the activity of OpenAI (the initial non-profit foundation). Thus, the for-profit part of OpenAI partnered with Microsoft to use its Azure cloud computing service, while Microsoft integrated OpenAI software into its products. With this, Microsoft took control of 49% of the company.

Worldcoin: a new vision for equitable asset distribution

Sam Altman is also in charge of the project worldcoin (founded in 2019, and with token launched in 2023), an initiative that aims to develop a blockchain-based system that has a dual purpose. Firstly, serve as a kind of Sovereign Digital ID (DID) with global reachand second to fairly distribute a minimum vital income to people who are registered in Worldcoin.

To achieve its goals, Worldcoin will use iris scanning technology and AI to identify individuals and provide them with access to a digital currency called WorldCoin, which will be distributed equally to all citizens of the world based on their participation in the project. Although still in beta, the technology and ethical implications behind this system are generating great interest within the AI ​​and blockchain community.

However, the project has faced strong opposition and criticism. Firstly, by scanning the person's iris (a unique characteristic as individuals), which can put people's privacy at risk. And second, due to the lack of a sustainable model for its minimum vital income system using the Worldcoin token, since at no time has Altman explained the economic mechanism that allows its sustainability.

A first-class pioneer

In conclusion, Sam Altman is a pioneering figure who is leaving indelible marks both in the world of AI and in other relevant fields. His contributions and vision continue to transform entire industries and spark debates about the ethical implications of the technological future. With such a promising career, it is without a doubt that we will continue to see Sam Altman at the center of new breakthroughs and revolutionary innovations for society.