Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?

A deeply reported New Yorker investigation into Sam Altman's character and leadership of OpenAI, drawing on previously undisclosed documents including Ilya Sutskever's secret memos to the board and Dario Amodei's private notes. The piece chronicles a pattern of alleged deceptions spanning Altman's career—from Loopt and Y Combinator to OpenAI—including misrepresentations to board members about safety protocols, broken commitments to the superalignment team, and manipulation during the 2023 board crisis that led to his firing and swift reinstatement. It raises fundamental questions about whether someone with Altman's alleged traits should control one of the most powerful and potentially dangerous technologies in history, as OpenAI approaches a trillion-dollar valuation and secures sweeping government contracts.