Talk:Sam Altman

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Greg Brockman coverage

@Alenoach: Hey I see why you removed the Brockman sentence I added and I don't fully disagree. I wanted to include something on Brockman here because even though it is the Altman page, I think some information about how responsibilities were divided between leaders gives the readers useful information about what Altman's role was. What to do you think about the slightly modified:Co-founder Greg Brockman led OpenAI in hiring 52 employees in the first year. Many of these were top AI research talent that left high paying jobs for the opportunity at OpenAI.^[1]^[2] Czarking0 (talk) 19:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The second sentence looks ok, but the first sentence is weakly sourced. The NYT source says that OpenAI had 52 employees in 2016 and that Brockman co-led the lab with Sutskever, but that does not fully support the sentence. You may have to adjust it to rely more on the other source, or to find a better source. In the article on Brockman, for example, I added this instead: "Brockman helped Sam Altman and Elon Musk create the OpenAI founding team, recruiting several of its members, including Ilya Sutskever." Alenoach (talk) 20:56, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is at all a fair characterization and plan to remove that claim. Brockman helped Altman and Musk when the company was being run out of Brockman's livingroom? No, at best here Altman and Musk helped Brockman start OpenAI but really this is an argument. I think, from my second source,

Emboldened by the conversation with Musk, Altman, and others at the Rosewood, Brockman soon resolved to build the lab they all envisioned. Taking on the project full-time, he approached Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist at the University of Montreal and one of founding fathers of the deep learning movement. The field’s other two pioneers—Geoff Hinton and Yann LeCun—are now at Google and Facebook, respectively, but Bengio is committed to life in the world of academia, largely outside the aims of industry. He drew up a list of the best researchers in the field, and over the next several weeks, Brockman reached out to as many on the list as he could, along with several others.

shows that Brockman lead at least the initial hiring. Czarking0 (talk) 15:00, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brockman seems indeed to have been the most active in recruiting the founding members. If you have a better phrasing that highlights Brockman's role, you can make a bold edit. My objection was just for saying that he "led OpenAI in hiring 52 employees in the first year". The NYT article just says that OpenAI had "52 people in 2016", so we don't know if it's 52 hired in 12 months. It's also unclear whether Brockman really led the recruiting after the creating the founding team, seems like the leadership was shared with Altman and Sutskever. That's why I focused on the recruitment of the founding members, for which the Wired source better highlights his role. Alenoach (talk) 17:57, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet, so we are both ok with the current version? Also are you using some tool I should be aware of for these ref dedupes? Czarking0 (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not using a tool, I just noticed that there was a displayed error about the ref name "wired_inside2" being defined twice.

I made a bold edit to propose a version that looks good to me, I hope it's ok to you, but feel free to further iterate if you disagree. Alenoach (talk) 01:46, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is great! Always enjoy working with you Czarking0 (talk) 03:29, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Metz, Cade (April 19, 2018). "A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1 Million, Even at a Nonprofit". The New York Times. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
^ Cade Metz (April 27, 2016). "Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk's Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free". Wired. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2016.

"Gibstine" middle name

Hi Dinsm8re, thanks for adding information to the article about his names. I'm wondering though, is the name "Gibstine" notable enough to be in the first sentence? It's probably fine to be exhaustive in the infobox, and MOS:FULLNAME suggests that we should "usually" use the full name in the first sentence, but I don't see any reliable source using the name "Gibstine" besides the one you provided, so it might still be giving it undue weight to have it in the first sentence. What do you think? (by the way, if you could provide here a short excerpt from the book that shows what it says about the name "Gibstine", that would be helpful, as I don't have access to it) Alenoach (talk) 01:04, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the opinion that one RS with the full name is sufficient the name is not a claim in the traditional sense where due weight arguments make a lot of sense. However, I agree that with only one RS and it being a book the direct quote would be great. Czarking0 (talk) 01:26, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, honestly I’ve never looked into the MOS so I’m completely willing to leave the final decision to more experienced editors than myself; I’m not trying to start an edit war! The excerpt I cited was “Samuel Harris Gibstine Altman was born April 22, 1985, the first son of Jewish parents, in Chicago Illinois.” His parents are listed in the sentence below as Connie and Marvin Gibstine, so it seems plausible that Gibstine *is* a part of his full name, but unfortunately the book doesn’t appear to directly cite this passage (at least not that I could find)… Dinsm8re (talk) 04:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit for Accuracy

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. [see below]

TrialSpark is now Formation Bio. In the sentence below, recommend an updated note to reflect the correct company name and website: www.formation.bio

https://www.formation.bio/blog/introducing-formation-bio

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Altman helped fund and create Project Covalence to help researchers rapidly launch clinical trials in partnership with TrialSpark, a clinical trial startup. LM210NYC (talk) 19:56, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done Wikipedia follows the sources. Until more independent reliable and secondary sources change the name the name should remain outdated in the article Czarking0 (talk) 03:58, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Accusations of sexual abuse

I think it is important to include the fact that the alleged sexual abuse continued until after Sam Altman became an adult, though his siter was still a minor. Also that the case alleges his mother was aware and did not protect Ann Altman. ~2025-40911-82 (talk) 10:25, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

sources? Czarking0 (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Biographer

What is the phrase his biographer meant to convey? To me this indicates the author is non-independent in the sense that she is paid or otherwise rewarded by him to write his biography. If not, I think the same meaning can be conveyed without this phrase? Czarking0 (talk) 18:53, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Probably just that she has written a biography on him. She's not Altman's official biographer, and apparently at the beginning he was unhappy to see that a biography was being written on him.[1] So you can remove if it's clearer that way. Alenoach (talk) 20:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

[salaryTimes-1] Metz, Cade (April 19, 2018). "A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1 Million, Even at a Nonprofit". The New York Times. Retrieved August 12, 2025.

[wired_inside2-2] Cade Metz (April 27, 2016). "Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk's Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free". Wired. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2016.

[1]

[2]