OpenAI CEO Sam Altman In Forbes' Billionaire List

(RTTNews) - Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the developer of highly popular generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, has been added to the latest list of billionaires by Forbes with his vast investments in start ups and other companies.

Meanwhile, he does not have a financial stake in the now $80 billion-plus valued non-profit artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, which he cofounded with billionaire Elon Musk and others in 2015.

It is for the first time that Altman has been added to Forbes list of the world's richest people. In 2015, he was featured on Forbes' first-ever 30 Under 30 list for venture capital.

As per a Forbes investigation report, the major share of Altman's wealth comes from startup investments in companies supported by technology startup accelerator Y Combinator Management, LLC.

Altman's investments in YC companies include Reddit, fintech unicorn Stripe, nuclear energy company Helion as well as longevity startup Retro Biosciences, among others.

For adding him to the list, Forbes said it went through more than a dozen regulatory filings and spoke to many people familiar with Altman's investments that gave the most thorough estimate of his net worth so far to be $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Forbes said it could not appraise Altman's personal collection of technological artifacts, such as jet engines and Bronze Age swords.

Forbes cited Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn cofounder and former longtime OpenAI board director, as saying, "Sam is rare in that he's a capable investor, but he's also making bold bets. A lot of investors are fearful of failing. They invest in things that will make money, but aren't going to be potential big public failures. Sam is very comfortable with taking the big bet."

It is said that Altman at the age of 8 learned to program and disassemble a Macintosh computer. In 2003, he enrolled at Stanford to study computer science, but dropped out to start location-sharing mobile app Loopt two years later. He participated in startup accelerator Y Combinator's first-ever cohort in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At YC, cofounder and president Paul Graham in 2009 included Altman on a list of the previous 30 years' five most interesting startup founders, along with Apple's Steve Jobs as well as Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Altman, who had started investing from a young age, in 2010 invested in four companies. The next year, he became a partner at YC. In 2012, Altman sold Loopt for $43 million. That year, he launched a $20 million venture fund, Hydrazine Capital, under the mentorship of PayPal cofounder and billionaire Peter Thiel. The fund reportedly invested 75% of its capital into YC companies.

Altman in 2014 became the successor for Graham to run YC. As YC president for five years, he set up Continuity fund to keep investing in YC alumni companies as they grew, and also offered online courses for would-be founders and investors.

In 2015, he cofounded OpenAI with Musk and others with a view to utilizing AI for the benefit of humankind. Microsoft Corp. is currently OpenAI's largest investor.

Amid his growth as an investor, Altman in November last year was ousted by the OpenAI Board as its CEO, saying that he was not consistently candid in his communications. After Altman's exit, OpenAI's President and co-founder Greg Brockman also left the company in protest, and majority of OpenAI employees threatened to quit if Altman was not reinstated.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corp., OpenAI's largest investor, then had informed that he was not given any explanation.

However, after few days, Altman was reinstated to the company's chief role by its Board. In March this year, Altman rejoined its Board of Directors after an independent Special Committee investigation on his firing and related incidents found that his conduct did not mandate removal.