Many of them start out with a powerful mix of genius and idealism, and a promise that their brilliant talents will change the world for the better. People believe in them, pour millions of dollars into their vague ideas, and soon they're on magazine covers and featured guests at summits and conferences around the world.
And inevitably, gravity takes over and they fall.
We've seen it all before with tech founders. Mark Zuckerberg went from child genius to scandal-ridden figure. Elon Musk went from being the “real Tony Stark” on a mission to save the world to being what critics call a caricature of an evil billionaire plotting world domination. Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman Freed were once seen as saviors. Now they're both in prison.
Sam Altman, who has been hit with a string of bad headlines in recent weeks, appears to be the latest to succumb to this saga. The CEO and co-founder of OpenAI appears to have entered his villain phase.
After ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022, Altman went from being little known outside Silicon Valley to now being a household name: He was named Time magazine's CEO of the Year for 2023, and Microsoft showed its faith in him with a $10 billion investment. His brief exile last year, notable for the way his colleagues and the tech elite rallied around him, only strengthened his power (though it also points to some of the concerns about AI safety that resurfaced this week).
“This is Sam's world,” one prominent tech developer told BI last year, “and we all live in it.”
All the while, he committed to doing good deeds through his work.
“I think we can make the world a much better place,” Altman told BI last year about the potential of AI. “I think it takes a few things to do that, and I like to feel like I'm helping.”
Meanwhile, Altman has personally invested in clean energy and anti-aging research, and even wrote checks to help startups fund payrolls when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed.
“Sam Altman is my hero,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted in November. “I and billions of others will benefit from his work going forward, which will be just amazing. Thank you for all you've done for all of us, @sama.”
From hero to anti-hero: Early signs of villainy
As Bruce Wayne once learned, and as Altman is likely learning in real time, you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.
There have been rumors in recent months that Altman doesn't deserve the lofty accolades the world has given him (to be fair, Altman has never claimed to be perfect or omniscient, and has been quick to respond directly to criticism).
Some around him are raising eyebrows at his investment network, which appears to be promoting a vision reminiscent of a science fiction movie.
“If your worldview is that there's AGI and it's basically superhuman and these are like gods and we invented gods, then yeah, we might as well turn the whole planet upside down,” Databricks CEO Ali Ghodshi told BI earlier this year. “I don't see that happening.”
There were signs in March that some in the VC industry were starting to see beyond Altman's hype.
“He and his brothers have always been very publicized,” a venture capital partner told BI in March about Sam and his brother Jack. “It's always been like, 'Oh, the Altman brothers,' and they're going to be pretty overpriced just because of who they are.”
“He's one of the most intellectually dishonest people in tech,” another said at the time. “I've met him many times and the things he says are like, 'No way,' but he somehow manages to get away with it.”
Sam Altman's tough weeks
Now the criticism appears to be spreading beyond Silicon Valley.
Last week, OpenAI announced its new flagship AI model, GPT-4o, which can interact via text, voice, and video. In X, Altman appears to liken the new model to the AI in the film “Her,” though it's not clear if he saw that film through to its dystopian conclusion.
Critics were quick to respond, describing the AI assistant's voice as sexually charged and overly sexual, with one person calling it “extremely gross” and another saying it bore an uncanny resemblance to Scarlett Johansson, who voiced the robot in “Her.”
The actress turned down multiple offers from Altman to voice the AI, and released a scathing statement saying she was “shocked” and “angered” by the resemblance.
The voice, named “Sky,” was removed a week after it was released, with the company claiming it was not a deliberate attempt to imitate Johansson's voice.
Still, the seeds of a dystopian future in which artificial intelligence can take on human likeness without human permission have been sown.
At the same time, the company was fighting a defensive battle on another front: The day after GPT-4o was released, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and machine learning researcher Jan Reicke resigned from their positions on OpenAI's superalignment team, which had seen several other members leave in recent months.
By the end of the week, the team tasked with protecting humanity from AI superintelligence had been disbanded entirely, leaving OpenAI's safety efforts in doubt.
“Over the past few years, safety culture and process have taken a back seat to flashy products,” Reicke said in a series of social media posts announcing his departure.
To make matters worse, Vox published a scathing report about OpenAI and Altman's leadership, alleging that former employees were unhappy with the company's safety standards and had lost trust in Altman, but were afraid to speak out about it because they feared they would lose their vested interests if they criticized the company or mentioned signing an NDA.
Altman appeared to have his back against the ropes, and he and OpenAI Chairman Greg Brockman published a lengthy social media post on Saturday detailing their safety efforts.
When asked about the unusual NDA, Altman expressed regret: “This is my responsibility and one of the few times I've felt truly embarrassed while running OpenAI. I had no idea this was happening and should have known.”
But his image only worsened. In a follow-up report, Vox said Altman did Learn about fairness.
If the history of tech's fallen stars repeats itself, things won't look good for Altman: His utopian dreams are looking like dystopia to some, and his image as a Silicon Valley good guy is crumbling.
Of course, it's not all over for Altman: as far as we know, he has not committed any crimes that would earn him the same fate as Bankman Freed or Holmes.
And there's a chance he can rebrand, something no one has done better than Zuckerberg. Maybe Altman will need to go to the gym, get into a few well-timed fights with other tech billionaires, or buy a chain necklace.
