Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, and one of the leading figures of the AI boom. He has been compared to tech visionaries like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for his belief that artificial general intelligence will transform humanity.

Sam dropped out of Stanford after two years to co-found Loopt, a location-based social networking app, which was later acquired for $43.4 million. He then became President of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, helping launch companies like Airbnb, Stripe, DoorDash, Reddit, and Dropbox.

Sam co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Elon Musk and others as a nonprofit, becoming CEO in 2019. He also co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother and was involved with ventures including Worldcoin and serves as chairman of clean energy companies.

Under Sam's leadership, OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, which reached 100 million users in just two months and revolutionized the AI industry. OpenAI raised $40 billion in March 2025 at a $300 billion valuation, the largest private funding round in history, and is now valued at $500 billion.

OpenAI serves 500 million weekly ChatGPT users and generates over $20 billion in annual revenue as of 2026. The company is developing artificial general intelligence and has fundamentally transformed industries from education to enterprise automation, making Sam one of the most influential leaders in technology.