2023-12-24 07:35:43
The world of technology and Silicon Valley have been preoccupied recently with the drama of Sam Altman’s dismissal from his position in the company he founded, OpenAI – which launched the GPT chat boom – and his shuttle journey to Microsoft and his return once more to his company.
Altman’s journey emphasized the importance of investments in startups, and the strength of the investor’s role, which is evident in ChatGBT’s response when asked a question regarding this. He says, “An investor in a startup usually has certain rights and powers as a shareholder, including the right to Voting on some matters related to the company, the right to receive profits, and the right to participate in the company’s assets.”
Before the spread of the GPT chat fever, Sam Altman was passionate regarding technology and the world of entrepreneurship, while he traveled the entire world from East to West, to reveal the role of his startup company – whose market value reached regarding 80 billion dollars – which drew global attention to what it provided in the intelligence industry. Artificial technology, whose market is expected to reach regarding two trillion dollars by 2030.
Who is Sam Altman?
Altman was born in 1985 and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. From the age of eight, he was familiar with programming, which he explored on the Macintosh device launched by Apple for home use, until the inventor and co-founder of the company, Steve Jobs, became his role model in the world of business and innovation.
Altman studied computer science at Stanford University, and left following only two years, keen to break into the world of entrepreneurship, according to The New Yorker.
At the age of 19, he launched, in cooperation with two of his colleagues, the social networking application (Lobit), with funding amounting to regarding $6,000, becoming a major part of the first group of eight companies in the technology accelerator Y Combinator, which also included Reddit.
Although the application reached regarding $175 million, it was sold for $43 million to the Green Dot Banking Company, due to its inability to spread globally and obtain more user attention, according to what was reported by the Technology Business Accelerator and the Wall Street Journal.
The power of entrepreneurship and investments
Altman did not lose his passion for entrepreneurship following the failure of Loopit. Rather, his interest in investments prevailed, until he founded the Hydrazine Capital investment fund, and raised regarding $21 million. He invested 75 percent of this money in Y Combinator accelerator companies, and led a fundraising round for Reddit.
In 2014, the founder of the accelerator, Paul Graham, chose him to succeed him as president, and Altman returned to Stanford University once more following nine years since he was a student, but this time as a lecturer on… How to establish startups.
Altman explained in his lecture that despite the theoretical academic talk regarding entrepreneurship, 30 percent can actually be applied on the ground, stressing that the Y Combinator accelerator has funded 725 companies, which confirms the strength of the theoretical advice he provides in the lecture.
In 2015, Altman’s star flourished until he became one of Forbes’ list of influencers under the age of 30.
Over time, his interest in entrepreneurship grew, and he wanted to allow more startups in science, engineering, and nuclear energy to join the accelerator.
Regarding Altman’s activity in the accelerator, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, told The New Yorker that the accelerator’s ambition has increased regarding tenfold since he assumed its presidency.
In 2020, Altman worked with his brothers, Jack and Max, to launch a fund for companies that aspire to achieve unprecedented results.
In October 2021, Altman launched a global cryptocurrency project, through which he wanted to give everyone in the world access to cryptocurrencies via iris scanning.
The birth of OpenAI
In 2015, Altman teamed up with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, to launch OpenAI, a non-profit AI company aimed at reducing its risks to humans.
Musk left the company in 2018, and by 2019, Altman stepped down from his position as head of the accelerator, with the aim of focusing on his artificial intelligence startup, turning it into a limited-profit company.
He is given full credit for convincing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to offer regarding $10 billion for the company, and he also led the company’s bidding, boosting the company’s market value to more than $80 billion, according to Archyde.com.
As CEO, Altman attracted most of the AI engineering talent in this most competitive market in the technology sector, and with the launch of the GBT chat tool, this technology sparked controversy over its threat to jobs, data, and answers to the most difficult questions.
4th CEO in 3 days
Even as he traveled around the world, Altman was able to attract attention for his accuracy in presenting ideas related to artificial intelligence, and he also received the support of the US Congress, following he expressed his concerns regarding GBT chat, and his desire to meet the aspirations of governments and respond to all their concerns related to artificial intelligence.
Because the board of directors has the right to dismiss company founders, as its primary task is to appoint the appropriate CEO, the Board of Directors of OpenAI revealed the dismissal of its CEO and founder, which constituted a shock to the artificial intelligence industry in the world.
The company explained in a statement that an internal investigation found that Altman was not always honest with the Board of Directors, saying, “Altman’s departure comes following a deliberative review process by the Board of Directors that concluded that he was not consistently honest in his communications with the Board of Directors, which hindered his ability to exercising his responsibilities, and therefore the Board of Directors no longer trusts his ability to continue leading the company.”
While the board of directors was putting forward several names to succeed Altman, the founder of OpenAI joined Microsoft, which is considered one of the startup’s financial backers and has a 49 percent stake in the company, causing its shares to rise to record levels.
Altman had the intelligence to turn crises into solutions, and with more than 700 people threatening to leave Microsoft following his dismissal, his return was the most logical scenario.
This drama, which some likened to the Game of Thrones series, ended with the king’s return to his previous position victorious, and the appointment of a new board of directors to replace the one who decided to dismiss him, making him the fourth CEO of the company within three days, confirming the strength of the young entrepreneur’s thinking and his exploitation of the investment element, so with his departure OpenAI would have lost not only its founder, but its biggest backers.
1703406045
#Sam #Altman…the #journey #artificial #intelligence #pioneers #triumphant #return #temporary #failure
