Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible
Aug 23, 2026 · 1:18:17
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, tells David Senra that AI capabilities will outpace society's ability to adapt, and that human connection becomes more valuable as AI improves. Altman cites Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke as the most forward-leaning CEO because he builds with AI himself. He explains OpenAI's platform strategy—one interface, one API—which meant killing Sora and Atlas to focus on general intelligence. He credits Y Combinator's iterative philosophy for making OpenAI possible, even though OpenAI broke the playbook by going four and a half years without shipping a product. He also recalls the first day at Greg Brockman's apartment and says he learns more from successes than failures.
