Sam Altman is the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenAI, the San Francisco-based AI research and deployment company behind ChatGPT and the GPT model family. Before OpenAI, Altman was president of startup accelerator Y Combinator, and earlier co-founded the location-based social app Loopt. He has become one of the most prominent public voices on AI policy, frequently testifying before lawmakers and engaging with governments globally on questions of AI regulation and safety.
Altman briefly departed OpenAI in November 2023 following a board dispute before returning as CEO days later amid employee and investor pressure, an episode that drew significant attention to OpenAI's unusual nonprofit-controlled governance structure at the time.