The Optimist

Sam Altman, OpenAI and the Race to Invent the Future

By: Keach Hagey

Narrated by: Will Damron

From an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology.

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the company’s board. The firing made headlines around the globe: OpenAI is the leader in the race to build AGI―artificial general intelligence, or AI that can think like a human being―and Altman is the most prominent figure in the field. Yet it was mere days before Altman was back running the company he had co-founded, with most of the directors who voted to fire him themselves removed from the board.

The episode was a demonstration of how quickly the industry is moving, and of Altman’s power to bend reality to his will. In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman’s rise, his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham’s protégé and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team.

Hagey conducted more than 250 interviews, with Altman’s family, friends, teachers, mentors, co-founders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies, in addition to spending hours with Altman himself. With both the promise and peril of AI increasing by the day, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced, revelatory account of the individual who is leading us into what he himself has called “the intelligence age.”

©2025 Keach Hagey (P)2025 Spotify Audiobooks

Fire 🔥

Loved story. Page turner. I’d highly recommend it to everyone as soon as possible as they can read it they should.

Excellent, lots of new information, and no slant

An excellent book, that shows off great research, without any anti tech or pro tech agenda. It’s quite refreshing.

Thorough, enlightening and very human for a technical subject

This is an excellent book. Very well written and very well narrated. Much needed for the industry. I really like Sam Altman now!

First 1/2: S.A. is genius do-gooder! Second 1/2: S.A. is duplicitous manipulator?

It felt journalistic, in the right way.

The first half was kind of boring telling of the life of a Walter Mitty, and/or, a young Stephen Hawking. The Optimist!

Second half? like watching Steve Jobs (it's about the journey) reveal that actually he's Mark Zuckerberg (it's about the power). ...An magnetic manipulator. The Sociopath?

Time will tell

good history of openai and the sv milieu

it’s more than an alman bio and the firing event is but a chapter. if you want drama, it’s missing here, but if you want history and context, you will find it.