He makes money by convincing people to buy OpenAI stock.

If OpenAI goes down tomorrow, he will be just fine. His incentive is to sell the stock, not actually build and run a profitable business.

Look at Adam Neumann as an example of how to lose billions of investor dollars and still walk out of the ensuing crash with over a billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann

His strategy is to sell OpenAI stock like it was Bitcoin in 2020, and if for some reason the market decides that maybe a company that loses large amounts of cash isn't actually a good investment... he'll be fine, he's had plenty of time to turn some of his stock into money :)

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simianwords 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Why not build a profitable business like Zucc, Bill gates, Jensen, Sergey etc? These people are way richer much more powerful.

	▲	achenet 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I believe, but have no proof, that the answer is "because it's easier to sell stock in an unprofitable business than build a profitable one", although given the other comment, there's a good chance I'm wrong about this :)

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Tossrock 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Altman doesn't have any stock. He's playing a game at a level people caught up on "capitalism bad" can't even conceptualize.

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achenet 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm more "capitalism good" (8 billion people on earth, 7 billion can read, 5 billion have internet, and almost no one dies in childbirth anymore in rich countries, which is several billion people), but that is really interesting that he has no stock and just gets salary.

I guess if other people buying stock in your company is what enables you to have a super high salary (+ benefits like company plane, etc), you are still kinda selling stock though, and honestly, having considered the "start a random software company aligned with the present trend (so ~2015 DevOps/Cloud, 2020 cryptocurrency/blockchain, 2024 AI/ML), pay myself a million dollar a year salary and close shop after 5 years because 'no market lol'" route to riches myself, I still wouldn't consider Altman to be completely free of perverse incentives here :)

Still, very glad you pointed that out, thanks for sharing that information ^^

	▲	simianwords 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Again incorrect. He doesn’t have a super high salary.

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simianwords 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Holy shit you are right. He owns no equity and just gets a salary. I have no idea about the game he’s playing.