OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his experience of becoming a father earlier this year has profoundly affected his outlook and has reframed how he thinks about the far-reaching implications of his work in artificial intelligence.
Altman and his husband, Australian software engineer Oliver Mulherin, welcomed a baby boy in February via surrogacy. Altman and Mulherin, both 40, got married in Hawaii last January.
Speaking with Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters in June, Altman described the immediate impact of his new role as a parent.
“I don’t think I have anything non-cliché to say here, but it is the best, most amazing thing ever. And it totally rewired all of my priorities,” he said. “I remember in the first hour, I felt this neurochemical change and it happened so fast. I was like, oh, I get to like observe this. Like, I am being like neurochemically hacked, but I’m noticing it happening. I’m totally fine with it. That’s great. But everything is going to be different now.”
Chang pressed Altman on how, if at all, the experience of parenthood has changed his perspective on building advanced artificial intelligence. “A lot of people have said, I’m very happy you’re having a kid, because I think you’ll make better decisions for humanity as a whole,” Altman said. “I really wanted to get it right before, and do the best I could. I still really want to now.”
His decision-making abilities have been both praised and criticized throughout his tenure as OpenAI’s CEO. In November 2023, Altman was ousted by OpenAI’s board of directors, who cited a lack of confidence in his leadership and raised concerns about his transparency, communication, and the company’s safety processes.
Former board member Helen Toner alleged Altman withheld information from the board, provided “inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes,” and engaged in manipulative behavior and psychological abuse. However, Altman was reinstated less than a week later after outcry from employees and investors, while a subsequent investigation concluded that his behavior “did not mandate removal.”
Despite the controversy, Altman’s boosters say the CEO has been instrumental in driving OpenAI’s financial success, helping it transition from a non-profit research lab to a global leader in artificial intelligence, ushering in commercially successful products like ChatGPT and forging high-profile partnerships, including a landmark multibillion-dollar investment from Microsoft.
Altman’s reflections as a new parent come as OpenAI rapidly expands its ambitions, including the President Trump-backed Stargate initiative, which he called “the biggest infrastructure project in history” in the Bloomberg interview.
Stargate, for the uninitiated, is OpenAI’s next-generation data-center project that’s designed to address the surging demand for AI computing power. It’s envisioned as a cornerstone for the future of AI development, both in terms of scale and technological innovation.
When asked about the scale and speed of change in the AI sector, Altman likened the experience to “watching your own kid grow day to day. You just see every change. And so it’s, like, not as striking. It does feel like it’s going very fast.”
That said, Altman recently admitted AI might be in a bubble, which sent AI stocks reeling for a couple of days.
You can watch the full interview between Sam Altman and Emily Chang below:
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
