Sam Altman

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, Inc.

In 2005, at the age of 19, Altman co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application. As CEO, Altman raised more than $30 million in venture capital for the company; however, Loopt failed to gain traction with enough users. In March 2012, it was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million. The following month, Altman co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother, Jack Altman.

Altman became a partner at Y Combinator in 2011, initially working there on a part-time basis. In February 2014, Altman was named president of Y Combinator by its co-founder, Paul Graham.In a 2014 blog post, Altman said that the total valuation of Y Combinator companies had surpassed $65 billion, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Zenefits, and Stripe. In September 2016, Altman announced his expanded role as president of YC Group, which included Y Combinator and other units. Altman said that he hoped to expand Y Combinator to fund 1,000 new companies per year. He also tried to expand the types of companies funded by YC, especially "hard technology" companies. In October 2015, Altman announced YC Continuity, a $700 million equity fund investing in YC companies as they matured. A week earlier, Altman had introduced Y Combinator Research, a non-profit research lab, and donated $10 million to fund it. YC Research has thus far announced research on basic income, the future of computing, education, and building new cities. In March 2019, YC announced Altman's transition from the president of the company to a less hands-on role as Chairman of the Board, for him to focus on OpenAI. This decision came shortly after YC announced it would be moving its headquarters to San Francisco. As of early 2020, he was no longer affiliated with YC.