This is the man who brought OpenAI into existence — the company behind ChatGPT, which shook the whole world. In this interview, Sam Altman talks about his personal life, his successes, his hardest decisions, and the future of the world.
Question 1: If someone is seeing you for the first time and has no idea who you are, how would you introduce yourself in 60 seconds?
Sam Altman: I'm a fan of technology. A person who stays curious about the world. I believe AI is going to become something that touches all of our lives in very positive ways. Besides that, I'm a dad who loves his kids very much.
Question 2: Were you like this since childhood — always thinking about what interesting thing to say next? And did you ever feel inferior to others as a child?
Answer: As a child I was a very nerdy kid. I wasn't good at sports, and back then being good at sports was a big deal. I had friends, but I was never among the popular kids. That bothered me a little, but I had my computer and a small group of friends, so my childhood was wonderful.
Question 3: When I talk to people in America, they seem somewhat disappointed or afraid about AI, but when I talk to people in India, they are very optimistic. Why this difference?
Answer: India is our biggest market in the world. The reason for the difference is that countries that are growing fast, whose economies are expanding and that need new products and services more, welcome AI with a far more open heart than developed countries do.
Question 4: You hold no equity or shares in your own company (OpenAI), yet you were made into a "villain". What is the biggest misconception people have about you?
Answer: In America, powerful people are always viewed with suspicion. My biggest misconception is exactly this — that I hold no stake in the company. If an artist or an athlete works hard without money, people have no problem with it, but when a businessman does it, people find it strange — and people don't like strange things. I'm doing this work because it seems to me the most interesting and most important work for humanity.
Question 5: You have said that when you are right, people "misunderstanding" you is not your weakness but your strength. But before the result arrives, how do you know you are not wrong?
Answer: The truth is, you are never fully sure either. When we started OpenAI, it wasn't considered a big deal. People said AGI (a machine as smart as a human) would come in a hundred years, or never. But our belief was in "scaling" — doing the work at a large scale. When we saw that neural networks got better as they were scaled up, I became convinced we should invest more in this.
Question 6: Tell me one big decision you made in a state of 50 percent conviction and 50 percent madness.
Answer: In August 2022, when we had finished training GPT-4 (several months before presenting it to the world), we were amazed by its capabilities. Then we decided to bet our entire company and buy "compute" (computer power) on a massive scale. The world had not seen GPT-4 yet, so our decision looked like madness to people.
Question 7: When you talk to people, do they ever tell you that you are delusional or have gone mad?
Answer: Yes, people do say that — but I feel I should hear such things even more. The reason is that people in positions like mine make mistakes when they surround themselves with people who only agree with them (yes-men).
Question 8: What stops other smart founders from building such extraordinary things?
Answer: Something like AI happens only once in the world. But I believe there has never been a better time in history than today to start a new company, a new project, or a new creative work. Today the opportunities are countless.
Question 9: When you take a step that everyone calls wrong, how do you know your idea is not just wishful thinking?
Answer: One of the best ways is to tell your idea to a very smart, optimistic and wise friend. If you can convince them with arguments that this really could be a great thing, it means you are headed in the right direction. We should also teach children "how to ask questions". In some countries, mothers ask their children coming home from school, "What question did you ask today?" That is a very good habit.
Question 10: Was there a moment in your life when no one else believed in you, but you had complete faith in yourself?
Answer: The launch of ChatGPT is one example. Most people in the company thought launching it was far too early. In our internal testing, its retention rate (people using it again) was only 5 percent. But those 5 percent loved it so much that they kept using it again and again. I believe that if you are not embarrassed by your first product, you launched it too late.
Question 11: Do you think people still misunderstand you today?
Answer: This technology has still not been fully understood, but I think people have at least accepted now that AI has become a reality across the whole world.
Question 12: Why are people afraid of taking big, world-changing dreams (moonshots)?
Answer: People want to remain part of the crowd. Doing nothing unusual — nothing where you might fail or look foolish — is more comfortable. It is built into human biology that people do not like being thrown out of their tribe. In me, perhaps, the ability to bear this pressure is genetically lower.
Question 13: Do you worry about OpenAI? What is your biggest worry?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. We are building something that will become an extraordinary power in society. I believe it will be used for good, but a great deal is at stake and we carry a very big responsibility.
Question 14: You said superintelligence could become the biggest threat to humanity. If you build it, how will the risk be reduced?
Answer: If it falls into the wrong hands or goes beyond human control, it could be devastating. I don't want all of its power to be concentrated in one company, one person or one country. I believe the balance of this power can only be maintained if, instead of one, different companies are working on it.
Question 15: When you were removed from the company, your 700 employees threatened to resign as well. As a founder, what did you do right?
Answer: It wasn't just about me. We had actually built a wonderful culture and a group of people united by one purpose. We revived the best research-lab culture that had been missing for a long time.
Question 16: Several important people from your company (like Ilya and Musk) left you to build their own companies. What is the real disagreement between you?
Answer: In many people's minds, the idea settles in that the risks of this technology are so great that they can only trust themselves to build it. They feel the other person's approach is wrong and that power should not go into their hands.
Question 17: Lawsuits were filed against you. People left you. Governments are after you. Has all of this changed your personality?
Answer: It was impossible for a person to set out to build "superintelligence" and not have their life become madness. I feel my mind was already prepared for all of this. I can bear this madness.
Question 18: Do you ever get nervous?
Answer: Things have now become so crazy that my tolerance has grown a lot, so I get nervous less. The last time I got nervous was when AI solved a very difficult maths problem. When I feel nervous, I close my eyes and calm myself within a few seconds through meditation.
Question 19: Which part of your personality is now dead? What were you when you started, and what have you become now?
Answer: When we started the company, I was very carefree. Now my entire time is strictly scheduled. What I miss most is sitting in a coffee shop like an ordinary person, drinking coffee, using my laptop and watching the world. Now I can't do that without security guards.
Question 20: Why do you often ask founders of new companies how they will establish a monopoly in the market in the future?
Answer: It isn't the first or most important question, but it tells me how they will avoid their profits going to zero in the long run. The more important question is: "What is your product, and why would people use it?"
Question 21: Can you meet a founder for 30 minutes and tell whether they will build a successful company?
Answer: Not with complete accuracy, but you get a strong sense. I look at how clearly they can explain what they are saying. If in the meeting they can convince me to work with them, and they can think up new ideas quickly, those are big signs of success.
Question 22: Can you judge from mere words how much pain someone can endure?
Answer: That is difficult. You have to rely on their old life stories and circumstances. The best founders are those who can keep working hard for a long time without any immediate success.
Question 23: Can people be taught to be more ambitious?
Answer: Yes, they can be taught. When we put young people in a group with other ambitious people like them and give them one difficult challenge after another, they gain the confidence that they can do much more than they thought.
Question 24: What is the worst advice for a founder?
Answer: Almost all advice is bad advice. My advice is: "Listen to people's advice as little as possible." You cannot become a good founder by listening to podcasts. Just remember one principle — "Build something people really want" — and find the rest of the way yourself.
Question 25: You wrote 13 principles of success. If you wrote them now, what would you write?
Answer: I would say that "people don't understand the power of compounding". Many people stop in one place. You should learn from the previous step at every step of life and keep putting yourself into new and difficult challenges.
Question 26: What is the most uncomfortable or difficult thing for you these days?
Answer: The hardest decision these days is deciding what the pace of AI's progress should be. How far do we let it advance so that it stays safe and also benefits the world?
Question 27: When you are at home, do you question your own decisions — that maybe you are wrong?
Answer: Absolutely. I think about any problem from every angle, discard bad ideas, and talk to people. For me, keeping a balance between the office crowd and the solitude of home is very important so that I can think deeply.
Question 28: Do you worry that when you are gone, your children will grow up in a world run by AI?
Answer: Obviously, things can go wrong too — but I have immense faith in humans, that they will learn to adapt to circumstances and make society better. I believe the future will be better than today.
Question 29: What is that extraordinary thing you want to build in the future?
Answer: I am extremely excited to see how we can use AI to discover new things in science. I want to build a machine that finds new treatments for diseases, discovers new sources of energy, and unlocks the secrets of physics. I want AI to speed up our understanding of the world.
Question 30: What price did you pay to become "Sam Altman"?
Answer: I no longer have an anonymous life; I can't walk outside alone like an ordinary person. There is immense pressure on me, and people take out their anger and fear on me. But despite all of this, I consider myself very fortunate to have had the chance to do the most important work in human history. So I have no regrets about paying this price.
Sources
- YouTube — Sam Altman On AI Revolution, Superintelligence & Future Of Humanity | FO583 Raj Shamani (3 November 2026, about 70 minutes)
- Urdu translation: Gemini — shared by: Muhammad Noman
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