A couple of key things I pulled out of the article that I think merit some thought..
- "He owns no stake in the ChatGPT developer, saying he doesn’t want the seductions of wealth to corrupt the safe development of artificial intelligence, and makes a yearly salary of just $65,000."
- "Altman and his venture funds have invested in more than 400 companies, by Altman’s own estimate, including big names such as Stripe, Airbnb and Reddit."
- "A growing number of Altman’s startups do business with OpenAI itself, either as customers or major business partners. The arrangement puts Altman on both sides of deals, creating a mounting list of potential conflicts in which he could personally benefit from OpenAI’s work."
- "Altman’s more recent investments have focused on companies that aim to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom being driven by OpenAI. Apex Security, in which Altman invested an undisclosed amount last summer, aims to sell cybersecurity software to companies using AI products such as ChatGPT. He also invested an undisclosed amount in Exowatt, a startup tackling the clean-energy needs of big data centers used by AI companies."
Looking at all of these things I think it begs to question not only is he truly independent of "the seduction of wealth" like he talked about. If anything like the last point highlights he is playing both ends of the deal making sure he makes money at the end of it all. The Reddit deal was the biggest "winner" for him publically but it isn't the first nor will it be the last.
The guy is really giving me Lex Luther vibes....