OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Quotes.

Sam Altman was CEO of OpenAI from 2019 to 2023, when he was briefly fired and then reinstated. He is currently the CEO of OpenAI again.

“What I lose the most sleep over is the hypothetical idea that we already have done something really bad by launching ChatGPT.” ~Sam Altman
“One of the most powerful lessons to learn is that you can figure out what to do in situations that seem to have no solution.” ~Sam Altman
“For example, the US government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities. There are several other areas I mentioned in my written testimony where I believe that companies like ours can partner with governments, including ensuring that the most powerful AI models adhere to a set of safety requirements, facilitating processes to develop and update safety measures, and examining opportunities for global coordination.” ~Sam Altman
“If you are successful, it’s almost always because some people went out of their way to help you. You have a moral obligation to pay it forward.” ~Sam Altman
“Generally the highest ROI comes from getting even better in areas where you’re already strong, not improving in areas where you’re weak.” ~Sam Altman
“Facebook, Twitter, reddit, the Internet itself, the iPhone, and on and on and on—most people dismissed these things as incremental or trivial when they first came out.” ~Sam Altman

“Somewhere in the world, an unknown young person is probably starting a company now that will eventually be as big as today’s tech giants.” ~Sam Altman
“However, we think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models.” ~Sam Altman
“Most people get bogged down in linear opportunities. Be willing to let small opportunities go to focus on potential step changes.” ~Sam Altman
“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do, no matter what their credentials are or how much they have accomplished. You have the power within yourself to accomplish anything you set your mind towards as long as you believe in yourself and never give up on your dreams.” ~Sam Altman
“An AI that could design novel biological pathogens. An AI that could hack into computer systems. I think these are all scary.” ~Sam Altman
“Get good at “sales”” ~Sam Altman
“The way to build billion dollar companies is to first build something people love. There isn’t really a shortcut there.” ~Sam Altman
“Make something people want and then figure out how to make money from it. I think that should be the focus of any start-up.” ~Sam Altman
“Good ideas come from everywhere–not just those with fancy degrees or titles” ~Sam Altman
“There was a recent study that GPT-4, the model that is released, is less biased on implicit-bias tests than humans, even humans who think they’ve really trained themselves to be good at this. . . . If you look at the progress from model to model, even some of our biggest critics are like, wow, they’ve gotten quite a lot of the bias out of the model. So I think models like this can be a force for reducing bias in the world, not for enhancing it.” ~Sam Altman
“We can all have an incredible educator in our pocket that’s customized for us, that helps us learn.” ~Sam Altman
“The right answer to many problems faced by a startup is “do less things”. Very rarely the option the CEO chooses.” ~Sam Altman
“All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people.” ~Sam Altman