Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware

Video Description

A fireside with Sam Altman on June 16, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco. Sam Altman grew up obsessed with technology, broke into the Stanford mainframe as a kid, and dropped out to start his first company before turning 20. In this conversation, he traces the path from early startup struggles to building OpenAI—sharing what he’s learned about ambition, the weight of responsibility, and how to keep building when the whole world is watching. He opens up about the hardest moments of his career, the limits of personal productivity, and why, in the end, it's all still about finding people you like working with and doing something that matters. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://workatastartup.com Chapters: 00:00 – We’re going for AGI 01:25 – Founding OpenAI Against the Odds 05:00 – GPT-4o & the Future of Reasoning Models 07:00 – ChatGPT Memory & the ‘Her’ Vision 10:00 – GPT-5 & the Vision of a Multimodal Supermodel 11:00 – Robots at Scale 15:00 – Don’t Build ChatGPT — Build What’s Missing 17:00 – Elon’s Harsh Email & Building Conviction 26:00 – One Person’s Leverage in the Next Decade 32:00 – AI for Science: Sam’s Personal Bet