The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future

[E]xcellent and deeply reported. Tim Wu, New York Times Book ReviewThe first major biography of techs newest titan, this sets a high bar for those to follow. Publishers Weekly, starred reviewAn exemplary blend of biography, financial technology reportage, and futurology. Kirkus, starred reviewFrom an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology.On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the companys board. The firing made headlines around the globe: OpenAI is the leader in the race to build AGIartificial general intelligence, or AI that can think like a human beingand Altman is the most prominent figure in the field. Yet it was mere days before Altman was back running the company he had cofounded, with most of the directors who voted to fire him themselves removed from the board.The episode was a demonstration of how quickly the industry is moving, and of Altmans power to bend reality to his will. In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altmans rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Grahams protg and successor as head of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk, a former friend and now Altmans bitter opponent.Hagey conducted more than 250 interviews, with Altmans family, friends, teachers, mentors, cofounders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies, in addition to spending hours with Altman himself. The person who emerges in her portrait is a brilliant dealmaker with a love of risk, who believes in technological progress with an almost religious convictionyet who sometimes moves too fast for the people around him. With both the promise and peril of AI increasing by the day, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced, revelatory account of the individual who is leading us into what he himself has called the intelligence age.Altman is a figure out of Isaac Asimov or Neal Stephenson. Or he is the author himself: if it feels as though we have all collectively stepped into a science fiction short story, it is Altman who is writing it.