The most talked-about topic of the last few days has been the firing of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and speculation about Altman’s future has abounded on the Internet. Reports have also surfaced that Altman was offered a reassignment, but he declined and the company has begun searching for a new interim CEO.

Yesterday morning everyone’s attention was drawn to one piece of news. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Altman would be joining the tech giant to lead a new advanced artificial intelligence research team.

And even though Sam Altman’s name has become the most commented on for a few days, few of you actually know who he is and what his contributions to artificial intelligence are.

Let’s get to know the founder of ChatGPT a little better and understand what significance he has in the field of technology. 10 things you need to know about Sam Altman, presented by News Ablive.

• Samuel Harris Altman was born into a Jewish family on April 22, 1985. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He got his first computer when he was only eight years old.
• He chose to go to Stanford University to study computer science, but dropped out after one year. In 2005, he decided to pursue other things.
• At the age of 19, he co-founded the location-based social media app, Loopt. He raised $30 million from venture capital funds, but the company failed to get on its feet. Loopt was eventually purchased by Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million in 2012.
• In 2011, Loopt joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner. Within 3 years, he became president of Y Combinator.
• In 2015, he joined Combinator. Altman made Forbes’ “30 under 30” list.
• In 2016, he became the president of YC Group which comprised Y Combinator and other units. He then decided to focus on the AI research lab OpenAI in 2019 and hence stepped down from the president of the YC Group to just holding a chair on its board.
• In 2019, he co-founded Tools for Humanity, a company that built a cryptocurrency-based global iris-based biometric system, called Worldcoin. However, the company drew flak after the publication of a 2022 report by MIT Technology Review which revealed that it exploited the indigent workers of low-income countries in order to expand its network.
• He then made the complete transition to OpenAI as a CEO and co-founder in 2020. The company had already received funding from tech giants such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and others.
• He was named one of the 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2023 based on his work with OpenAI and his investments in startups such as Airbnb, Stripe, Pinterest, Reddit, etc.
• Fun fact, he was also the the CEO of our beloved Reddit for a short span of eight days in 2014 during the period when Yishan Wong stepped down and Steve Huffman returned as CEO.