Sam Altman Biography – Age, Personal Life, OpenAI, etc.

Sam Altman Biography (Introduction): American investor and entrepreneur Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985, and has been the CEO of OpenAI since 2019. He was briefly fired and then rehired in November 2023. In addition, he serves as the chairman of Helion Energy and Oklo Inc., both of which are clean energy companies. Altman is considered one of the pioneers of the AI ​​revolution.

Two years later, he left Stanford University and raised over $30 million in venture capital to launch the mobile social networking service Loopt. Altman joined the startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2011 and served as its president from 2014 to 2019. In February 2025, Altman had an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion.

Sam Altman Biography and Endeavors

Born on April 22, 1985, in Chicago, Illinois, to a Jewish family, Altman was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. His father worked as a real estate broker, and his mother is a dermatologist. Of his four siblings, Altman is the eldest. He began learning to code and disassemble computer hardware at the age of eight, after receiving his first computer, an Apple Macintosh. He went to the private John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri.

He studied computer science for two years at Stanford University before dropping out in 2005 without receiving a bachelor’s degree. Altman, the former CEO of Reddit, was the third-largest shareholder and made several investments in the social media network. Additionally, he contributed to Project Covalence’s funding during the COVID-19 pandemic and lent money to startups during Silicon Valley Bank’s depositor run.

Airbnb, Stripe, and Retro Biosciences are among the nuclear energy and tech startups in Altman‘s portfolio. In addition, he serves as chairman of the boards of Oklo Inc. and Helion Energy. Altman is the CEO of AltC Acquisition Corp., which he co-founded in March 2021. The majority of his estimated net worth of $2 billion comes from venture capital funds associated with Hydrazine Capital. Stake in more than 400 businesses totaling approximately $2.8 billion are part of his investment portfolio.

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Sam Altman Personal Life and Politics

Altman is a vegetarian and openly gay. He told people about his sexuality when he was 17 years old. He was in a relationship with Nick Sivo, who co-founded Loopt, for nine years before they broke up in 2012. In January 2024, he married engineer Oliver Mulherin. In May 2024, they signed the Giving Pledge, promising to donate most of their money.

Altman prepares for disasters and keeps guns, gold, medicine, batteries, water, and gas masks. He also owns a large piece of land in Big Sur. In January 2025, his sister filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse in a U.S. court.

Sam Altman, along with his mother Connie and brothers Max and Jack, denied these claims. He once thought about running for governor of California in 2018, but later decided not to. He supports land value tax and believes in giving people universal basic income (UBI).

Sam Altman OpenAI

Altman and others, including Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research, invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2015. In 2019, Altman left Y Combinator to focus on OpenAI, securing another $1 billion from Microsoft.

In May 2023, he spoke before the U.S. Senate about privacy and technology laws. On November 17, 2023, OpenAI removed Altman as CEO and also removed Greg Brockman from the board. Later, Microsoft announced that Altman would join them to lead a new AI research team.

However, OpenAI later decided to bring back Altman as CEO and Brockman as president. In March 2024, after a legal review, Altman returned to OpenAI’s board. Some people accused him of lying about a policy that affected employees who left OpenAI.

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Sam Altman Early Career

Sam Altman is a well-known investor and entrepreneur. At 19, he co-founded Loopt in 2005 and raised $30 million for the company. Later, Green Dot Corporation bought Loopt for $43.4 million. In 2012, he and his brother Jack Altman started Hydrazine Capital, an investment company focused on technology startups.

In 2011, Altman became a partner at Y Combinator (YC), a company that invests in new businesses. By 2014, YC’s total value crossed $65 billion, and Altman wanted to fund 1,000 new startups each year, focusing on companies that work on hard technology. In 2015, he launched YC Continuity, a $700 million fund to help YC startups grow.

In 2019, Altman co-founded Tools For Humanity, a company that builds eye-scanning technology for identity verification. He has also invested in several companies, including Humane, Retro Biosciences, Boom Technology, Cruise, and Helion Energy.

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