Sam Altman
CEO of OpenAI. Promise-making machine for the AI era. The Doctor checks what ships vs. what was promised at keynotes.
Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI, which means he is the face of the whole AI moment. Every time a new model drops, he is in the announcement video promising it will change everything, and every time people worry about what that means, he is promising it will all be fine.
My view: he sells big dreams and ships real products, which is more than most people in this industry do. But the gap between what he says and what the products actually do is where all the arguing lives. The demos are impressive. The “it can do anything” talk is not always backed up by the software. I try to judge him on what ships, not on what the keynote says is coming next quarter. He is clearly smart, clearly ambitious, and clearly not going anywhere. The AI fight is the biggest story in tech, and he is the main character. I will keep watching what OpenAI actually releases, and I will keep taking the hype with a big pinch of salt.