OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat before Congress in 2023 to testify about the dangers of AI. He told American lawmakers at the time that he owns no equity in OpenAI, something he\u2019s said many times, claiming he just runs the company because he loves it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Altman recently said he actually did have some equity in OpenAI through a Sequoia fund at one point, a stake he has since sold. In an interview with Bari Weiss released Thursday, Altman was asked what kind of stake he might have if OpenAI successfully converts into a for-profit company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Altman\u2019s investment through Y Combinator was known, his investment through Sequoia was not. OpenAI discloses Altman\u2019s indirect investment in his own company through YC on its website. The startup says this \u201csmall investment\u201d is the CEO\u2019s \u201conly interest\u201d in the company and was made before he worked full time at OpenAI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sequoia first invested in OpenAI in 2021, according to its website, two years after Altman became the full-time CEO of OpenAI. At that time, OpenAI was worth roughly $14 billion, a valuation that\u2019s exploded to $157 billion after the startup\u2019s latest funding round earlier this year \u2014 a round Sequoia participated in as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Sequoia\u2019s stake in OpenAI from 2021 is worth a lot more now, there are several unknowns about Altman\u2019s investment through the venture firm. Venture firms like Sequoia aren\u2019t required to disclose their limited partner investors. It\u2019s unclear when Altman sold the stake and for how much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed Altman\u2019s prior exposure in a statement to TechCrunch, but did not offer specifics on these aspects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat before Congress in 2023 to testify about the dangers of AI. He told American lawmakers at the time that he owns no equity in OpenAI, something he\u2019s said many times, claiming he just runs the company because he loves it. However, Altman recently said he actually did have some equity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}