Sam Altman’s Journey: A Deep Dive into His Rise to OpenAI CEO in New Book

Discover Sam Altman’s journey through Kevin Zhou’s biography, which chronicles his rise from Stanford dropout to OpenAI CEO. The book delves into his startups, Y Combinator experience, and recent power struggles.

Since the company sparked the global AI craze with ChatGPT in November 2022, Sam Altman, the CEO of artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer OpenAI, has been the subject of a dozen biographies.

However, only one was written by a Chinese author. Published in November 2024, Kevin Zhou’s Sam Altman provides a thorough account of the AI entrepreneur, covering his early years as a Stanford University dropout, the founding of his first start-up, Loopt, and his final years as the head of Y Combinator, a start-up accelerator. It also discusses current events, such as OpenAI’s power struggle.

Days before Altman’s temporary removal as CEO of OpenAI in November 2023, Zhou, the founder of tech media Pandaily, interviewed Altman, whom he had known personally at Stanford ten years earlier.

According to the book’s official introduction on Douban, a well-known website for book and movie reviews, Altman said he was impressed by the book’s detail and would “love to participate” in a follow-up when he retires.

Even though the majority of the research for the book came from public records and media reports, it includes some exclusive content, such as Altman’s thoughts on China and its tech companies.

He claimed that as president of Y Combinator, he ought to have traveled to China more frequently while instructing an entrepreneurship course. Under Altman’s direction, Y Combinator established its China division in 2018.

In 2023, Altman told Zhou that he had not yet figured out how to work with other nations, including China, but that he expected China to play a significant role in the investigation of AI.

For regulatory reasons, OpenAI’s products such as ChatGPT and the video generator Sora are not accessible in China. Developers and programmers frequently use the application programming interface (API) to access OpenAI’s large language models, but mainland Chinese users blocked it in July.

In an interview with business media China Entrepreneur, Altman also asked Zhou to suggest some Chinese AI companies that he could invite to OpenAI’s developer event in 2023. However, Zhou later informed him that because of hurried preparations and a lack of space, no Chinese companies ultimately participated.

The biography presents conflicting opinions about Altman’s character, at times describing him as “sincere and humble” and skilled at interacting with others, particularly those in higher positions than him.

Claims of Dishonesty and a “Toxic Culture of Lying”

However, the biography also quotes people who worked with Altman at Loopt and OpenAI, stating that he can be dishonest. In a May piece for The Economist, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, former OpenAI board members, claimed Altman had “a toxic culture of lying.”

Altman gained the trust of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Paul Graham, Reid Hoffman, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel thanks to his networking abilities. In 2018, when OpenAI was struggling financially following the departure of co-founder Elon Musk, Hoffman offered to pay for employees, and Nadella’s decision to invest US$1 billion in the startup in 2019 set the stage for its eventual explosive growth.

Author Zhou acknowledged Altman’s contribution to OpenAI, stating that without Altman “coordinating the entire firm” with his “leadership and adventurous spirit,” the company would not have been successful.

In his most recent book, Zhou, who translated the Chinese edition of Ashley Vance’s biography of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, made a comparison between the two businessmen. Zhou wrote, “Altman appears to purposefully avoid conflict, in contrast to Musk’s propensity for dramatic conflict.”