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Sam Altman

CEO, Openai

Search every verified Sam Altman interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has been a central figure in the AI safety debate over the past two months, publicly addressing concerns about the technology's rapid advancement. In interviews with Vanity Fair, Politico, and CNBC, Altman acknowledged the potential for AI to cause a "loss of control" and the concentration of power, while also defending OpenAI's record on safety-related slowdowns. He stated that the company has held back model releases and paused training runs when safety standards were not met, and he emphasized that OpenAI is committed to "pacing" capabilities so that safety, alignment, and monitoring stay ahead. Altman also discussed the voluntary AI accord signed by industry leaders and President Trump, describing it as "morally binding" and expressing optimism about international coordination, while noting that OpenAI would prioritize safety regardless of such agreements. At OpenAI's DevDay in late September, Altman introduced "Dots," a new line of always-on AI agents, and other products, framing the future of AI as a "new renaissance" rather than an industrial revolution. He reiterated that AI should empower individuals rather than replace human judgment, and he spoke at the UN Security Council about the need for international standards and human control over critical decisions, particularly in military and nuclear domains. Altman also addressed OpenAI's IPO plans, stating that going public in 2026 would be "ill-advised" given the current safety landscape, and he discussed the company's chip program and competitive pricing for developers. Throughout these appearances, Altman consistently emphasized the need for transparency, accident reporting, and shared industry standards to manage the risks of increasingly capable AI systems.

Recent appearances

  • Sam Altman on Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and the Risk of Extinction (Part Two)

    October 06, 2026 · 📺 Fair Game by Vanity Fair and Vanity Fair

    In this second of two sitdowns with Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci, taped in San Francisco on October 2nd, OpenAI’s Sam Altman discusses the ‘accord’ signed by AI leaders and President Trump, defends his company’s record on safety-related slowdowns, and clarifies how he’d like to be remembered as the story of this era of technology is written. “I'm going to make many individual decisions you clearly won't like,” Altman says. “But if you look at the trajectory of what we have done over the last many years we've been offering this, it's imperfect, but I think remarkably good relative to what I fear…

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  • Sam Altman on Elon Musk, ‘Artificial,’ and the Future of Humanity (Part One)

    October 06, 2026 · 📺 Fair Game by Vanity Fair

    Every day a new scientific breakthrough or existential threat seems to make the world more aware and more distrusting of an AI future that we’re told is rapidly approaching—whether we like it or not. And nobody is more recognized as the face of artificial intelligence—as a technology, an industry, and a civilizational shift—than Open AI founder and CEO Sam Altman. Long before he became a household name, Altman established a towering reputation in Silicon Valley: persuasive prodigy, visionary futurist, relentless CEO. But as OpenAI’s influence broke out of tech’s insular bubble, some of the ver…

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  • Sam Altman on Trump’s AI rebrand and the industry’s perception problem

    October 05, 2026 · 📺 POLITICO

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tells POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon that the company is preparing to disclose more incidents involving its AI models. He says he knows of none as severe as those recently reported and explains why he believes AI companies should accept some bounded risks while taking catastrophic risks seriously. In the first episode of Decoded, Altman discusses AI safety and regulation, where OpenAI differs from Anthropic, the political money flowing into the AI debate and the race with China. He also weighs in on the White House’s push to call AI “super intelligence” and what he wants t…

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  • How Sam Altman Uses Dots to Take Back His Time

    September 30, 2026 · 📺 Every

    Sam Altman's Dot, OpenAI's new always-on agent, gave him back the most productive part of his day. The OpenAI CEO would lose his early mornings—his window of "maximum creativity"—to whatever fire needed putting out. Now, his Dot triages those issues and flags only what's truly urgent. It's also gotten him building again: In spare moments, he gives his Dot ideas for a feature, and his Dot builds five or six versions for him to review. On the first episode of The Every Podcast (formerly AI & I), Dan Shipper interviews Altman at OpenAI's DevDay. They discuss how Altman uses his Dot to protect h…

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  • Open Interest 9/30/2026

    September 30, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Television

    Get a jump start on the US trading day with Dani Burger on "Bloomberg Open Interest." Yields fall and stocks jump on an inflation surprise, with Micron facing a key earnings test. President Trump strikes an AI accord as OpenAI chases a $1.4 trillion valuation. Plus, Apple makes its long-awaited smart-home push. And Citadel CEO Ken Griffin on his $3 billion gift to Carnegie Mellon, while KKR’s Christopher Sheldon breaks down the $8 trillion AI funding gap. Chapters: 00:00:00 - Open Interest 00:01:14 - Cooler PCE, Strong Consumer Spending & Fed Rate Outlook 00:04:27 - Apple's Smart Home Pu…

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  • How the AI industry will regulate itself when it comes to AI safety

    September 30, 2026 · 📺 CNBC Television

    After President Trump’s lunch with AI leaders on Tuesday, AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta are right where they were before: policing themselves. The meeting followed a stretch where the topic of AI safety turned into an intense nationwide debate, with industry experts warning of the extreme threats posed by AI. AI safety was also a topic at OpenAI's DevDay this week, where CNBC's Kate Rooney spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar about safety and liability issues.

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  • 🔴 LIVE from OpenAI DevDay

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 TBPN

    09:00 Sam Altman discusses how increasingly capable AI agents can simplify work and daily life while fostering an open ecosystem for developers. He also addresses OpenAIâ s startup culture, expanding computing infrastructure, simplified model selection, rapid experimentation, and the unresolved scientific challenge of aligning superintelligent AI. 25:17 Alexander Embiricos, an OpenAI product leader, discusses â dots,â proactive AI agents designed to act as personal delegates across workplace tools. He explains how personal and specialist dots can autonomously handle tasks, support in…

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  • OpenAI DevDay 2026 Keynote (FULL)

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 OpenAI

    Watch Sam Altman, Romain Huet, Tejal Patwardhan, and Holly Li announce and demo 20+ launches at OpenAI DevDay, including dots, ChatGPT Spaces, GPT-6.1 Sol, Astra Ultrafast, and more.

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  • Meet "Dots": OpenAI’s New Autonomous AI Agents Explained | Dawn News English

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 DawnNews English

    At OpenAI DevDay 2026, CEO Sam Altman introduced "Dots"—always-on, autonomous AI agents designed to seamlessly handle daily tasks and manage focus across 4,000+ apps. Powered by OpenAI's Astra model, Dots aim to transform AI interaction from reactive prompts into proactive personal assistance. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dawn News English is your window into the latest news, insight, and features from South Asia and beyond. Website: www.dawn.com Official Facebook:  / dawnnewsenglish   Official Tw…

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  • OpenAI's Sam Altman on new models: Safety has to stay ahead of capabilities

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 CNBC Television

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sits down with CNBC's Kate Rooney to discuss safety concerns surrounding frontier models.

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  • Altman on OpenAI's IPO Plans, AI Agent Dots, AI Security

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Television

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talks about launching its new AI personal agent called Dots, which he says is a premium product.Sam Altman now joins us live on Bloomberg Television from Fort Mason in San Francisco with BTEC host Ed Ludlow. Thank you ...

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  • Sam Altman on Nvidia's new AI guardrails: I don't think it's a full solution

    September 29, 2026 · 📺 CNBC Television

    Sam Altman sits down with CNBC's Kate Rooney from OpenAI DevDay 2026.

    Watch on YouTube ↗

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“I think for example, I support open source models. There is a coming title wave of cyber security problems that are going to come from these open source models. Now, we're trying to help the world be ready for that by saying we've got a little bit of a lead. We want to help you defend. But there are people in the industry who say we should ban open source because otherwise a bunch of systems are going to be hacked. A”

“These models are in the seriously capable era now. And so the kind of decisions where I think a year ago we could have very reasonably said, you know, just put this out in the world. It's maybe a little unsafe, but nothing that bad is going to happen and people, you know, we want people to benefit from it. Is it's different now. And I think that as the capabilities continue to increase, that the bar we will hold for ”

“I think there are three levels to have this conversation at. There's what we will do unilaterally even assuming no one was willing to cooperate with us. There is what I believe we should be allowed to do as an industry and where I think we'll need things like antitrust exemptions to be able to talk about slowing down together, and then among other American companies, and then there's what needs to happen internationa”

“First of all, we will not be like any other company. Even when we go public, which we are not in a rush to do, we will still have a nonprofit that governs us. We will remind investors and anyone that thinks about buying our shares that we are going to put the mission first. We believe that that will be compatible with our shareholders doing super well. I genuinely do think that. But if they are ever in tension, the m”

“I think there's a lot of daylight. We have always been a big believer that this technology has to be democratized and put into people's hands. I think one of the biggest differences between us and some of the stricter let's say AI safety people is we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency. So like you know I disagree but I unders”

“I do think there are two ways this technology can go very wrong. I mean there's many specifics we could talk about but if we think about the kind of general directions that we should be worried about, one which has gotten a lot of attention recently is that there could be a loss of control to AI and that we build something that we don't have sufficiently aligned to human values and that allows people to stay in contr”

Other executives at Openai

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