“Sam Altman Is Worth $2 Billion—That Doesn’t Include OpenAI”, Annie Massa, Vernal Galpotthawela2024-03-01 (OA)⁠:

Sam Altman became the face of the artificial intelligence craze through his role as chief executive officer of OpenAI. But his wealth goes far beyond the startup behind ChatGPT.

The 38-year-old is worth at least $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing his fortune for the first time. That figure doesn’t include any stake in OpenAI, which was recently valued at $86 billion. Altman has repeatedly said that he does not own equity in the company. Rather, much of his traceable wealth is in a web of VC funds and startup investments, and is set to grow with the initial public offering of Reddit, where he’s among the largest shareholders.

…The sources of his wealth are relatively opaque. Altman invests in an array of closely held companies such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink that don’t disclose his precise stake and are not included in Bloomberg’s wealth calculation.

The bulk of his traceable net worth comes from $1.2 billion invested in a set of venture capital funds with variations on the name Hydrazine Capital, according to regulatory filings and Bloomberg estimates. He has an additional $0.434b in funds at Apollo Projects, which invests in “moonshots”, according to its website.

Some of those VC funds are among the entities affiliated with Altman that own 8.7% of Reddit, the popular message-board site that filed for an IPO last week. The offering could value the company at as much $6.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. That would provide a windfall for the funds, which have a stake more than double the size of Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman’s.

Altman also lavished money on two lesser-known startups. He led a $0.5b investment round in nuclear fusion company Helion Energy Inc. in 2021, and he invested $0.18b in Retro Biosciences, which is working on lengthening the average human lifespan by 10 years.

…In Congressional testimony and interviews, Altman has said he doesn’t own equity in the company. While some employees have received equity-like compensation called “profit-participation units”, Altman doesn’t hold PPUs either, company spokesperson Steve Sharpe said in an emailed statement.

Sharpe also said Altman won’t receive any financial benefit from the OpenAI Startup Fund, which raised $0.175b to take stakes in early-stage AI companies. Although regulatory filings show Altman owns more than 75% of the fund, he hasn’t invested his own money and won’t profit from its gains, according to Sharpe.

See Also:

• Sam Altman owns OpenAI’s venture capital fund

• OpenAI removes Sam Altman’s ownership of its Startup Fund

• Altman’s polarizing past hints at OpenAI board’s reason for firing him: Before OpenAI, Altman was asked to leave by his mentor at the prominent start-up incubator Y Combinator, part of a pattern of clashes that some attribute to his self-serving approach

• Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death: Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out