> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Sam Altman - URL: https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/sam-altman/ - Published: 2026-03-08T19:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-03-08T19:30:49.000Z - Author: Liam Sturgess - Tags: Profiles, #docs, #individual, Person, United States, #toc, COVID-19, Venture Capital **Samuel Harris Altman** is an American entrepreneur, investor and programmer. ## History Altman was born in 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to St. Louis, Missouri at a young age.[\[1\]](#fn1) ### Education Altman attended John Burroughs School for secondary school.[\[2\]](#fn2) He studied computer science at Stanford University, where he worked in the school's artificial intelligence lab.[\[3\]](#fn3) ### Career After only two years at Stanford, in 2005, Altman dropped out and co-founded Loopt at the age of 19.[\[4\]](#fn4) The company was included in [Y Combinator](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Y-Combinator)'s very first round of startups.[\[5\]](#fn5) Altman's [Twitter](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Twitter) profile was created in July 2006.[\[6\]](#fn6) Altman became a partner at Y Combinator in 2011.[\[7\]](#fn7) Loopt was acquired by Green Dot in March 2012 for $43.4 million.[\[8\]](#fn8) Altman founded [Hydrazine Capital](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Hydrazine-Capital) the following month with his brother Jack Altman.[\[9\]](#fn9)[\[10\]](#fn10) Altman was made President of Y Combinator in February 2014.[\[11\]](#fn11) He spent 8 days as CEO of Reddit while the company transitioned to a replacement for Yishan Wong, who had resigned the week prior.[\[12\]](#fn12) On March 10, 2015, Altman announced that Peter Thiel had joined Y Combinator as a partner. He described Thiel as "one of the two people" who had taught him "the most about how to invest in startups."[\[13\]](#fn13) On December 11, 2015, Altman was announced as a founding board member of OpenAI alongside Elon Musk.[\[14\]](#fn14) Altman first invested in HelixNano in December 2016.[\[15\]](#fn15) Altman stepped down from his role of President at Y Combinator in March 2019.[\[16\]](#fn16) He took over as CEO at OpenAI later that year.[\[17\]](#fn17) Altman co-founded [Tools for Humanity](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Tools-for-Humanity) in 2019 with Alex Blania,[\[18\]](#fn18) which began development on [Worldcoin](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Worldcoin) with Max Novendstern, who co-founded the project.[\[19\]](#fn19) ### COVID-19 Following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, Altman and [Dustin Moskovitz](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Dustin-Moskovitz) engaged in discussions that led to the formation of Help With COVID, an online portal cataloguing projects and resources related to the crisis.[\[20\]](#fn20) Altman provided further investment funding to HelixNano in March 2020, and again two years later in March 2022.[\[15:1\]](#fn15) In April 2020, Altman set up Project Covalence in order to "help researchers rapidly launch clinical trials" to accelerate the "development of treatments and diagnostics for COVID-19."[\[21\]](#fn21) His collaborators were Mark Fishman and [TrialSpark](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/TrialSpark).[\[22\]](#fn22) In May 2020, Altman donated $250k to [American Bridge 21st Century](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/American-Bridge-21st-Century), a super PAC supporting the successful election of [Joe Biden](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Joe-Biden) to the presidency.[\[23\]](#fn23) ## Investments Companies in which Altman has personally invested include:[\[15:2\]](#fn15)[\[24\]](#fn24)[\[1:1\]](#fn1) - Airbnb - Asana - Atmos - Brinc Drones - Campuswire - Change.org - Coco Delivery - Codeacademy - FarmLogs - Helion Energy - HelixNano - Humane - Instacart - Journey Colab - Lattice - Meter - Nautilus Labs - Neuralink - Patreon - Pinterest - Rain Neuromorphics - Reddit - Rescale - Retro Biosciences - Rewind AI - Science Exchange - Stripe - [TrialSpark](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/TrialSpark) - TrueNorth - ZeroDown ## External links - [Golden](https://golden.com/wiki/Sam%5FAltman-J5GKK5) - [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sama) - [Website](https://blog.samaltman.com/) - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam%5FAltman) - [Wikispooks](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Sam%5FAltman) --- 1. Ijarotimi, T. (2023, April 1). *Who is Sam Altman? A look into the life of a tech entrepreneur and investor.* Interesting Engineering. [↩︎](#fnref1) [↩︎](#fnref1:1) 2. Nast, C. (2016, October 3). *Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny.* The New Yorker. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. *Partners.* Y Combinator. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Ankeny, J. (2015, April 25). *Meet Y Combinator’s Bold Whiz Kid Boss.* Entrepreneur. [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Gannes, L. (2014, March 18). *Y Combinator’s New Head Startup Whisperer Sam Altman Is Quite a Talker.* Vox. [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. *Sam Altman (@sama).* Twitter. Retrieved March 13, 2015, from [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Clark, K. (2019, May 2). *Y Combinator president Sam Altman is stepping down amid a series of changes at the accelerator.* TechCrunch. [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. Vascellaro, J. E. (2012, March 9). *Startup Loopt Lands with Green Dot.* Wall Street Journal. [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. HYDRAZINE CAPITAL GP, LLC. (2023). *Form ADV - Uniform Application for Investment Adviser Registration and Report by Exempt Reporting Advisers.* Securities and Exchange Commission. [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. *Hydrazine Capital LP - Company Profile and News.* Bloomberg. Retrieved July 27, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. *Sam Altman on Founders and the Fear of Rejection.* (2015, December 2). Y Combinator. [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Altman, S. (2014, November 13). *A new team at reddit.* Sam Altman. [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. Altman, S. (2015, March 10). *Welcome Peter.* Y Combinator. [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Brockman, G., & Sutskever, I. (2015, December 11). *Introducing OpenAI.* OpenAI. [↩︎](#fnref14) 15. Nguyen, B. (2023, February 19). *ChatGPT creator Sam Altman has invested in dozens of companies over the years, from Elon Musk’s Neuralink to Reddit.* Business Insider. [↩︎](#fnref15) [↩︎](#fnref15:1) [↩︎](#fnref15:2) 16. Loizos, C. (2019, March 9). *Did Sam Altman make YC better or worse?* TechCrunch. [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. De Vynck, G. (2023, April 9). *The man who unleashed AI on an unsuspecting Silicon Valley.* Washington Post. [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. *Tools For Humanity - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding.* Crunchbase. Retrieved July 27, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. Singh, M. (2022, August 25). *Worldcoin co-founder leaves firm to start new venture.* TechCrunch. [↩︎](#fnref19) 20. *About.* Help with Covid. Retrieved August 1, 2020, from [↩︎](#fnref20) 21. Altman, S. (2020, June 16). *Project Covalence.* Sam Altman. [↩︎](#fnref21) 22. *Home.* Project Covalence. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from [↩︎](#fnref22) 23. Tindera, M. (2020, May 22). *Silicon Valley’s Sam Altman Gave $250,000 To Democratic Super-PAC Supporting Biden.* Forbes. [↩︎](#fnref23) 24. Regalado, A. (2023, March 8). *Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death.* MIT Technology Review. [↩︎](#fnref24)