{"product_id":"the-optimist-sam-altman-openai-and-the-race-to-invent-the-future-9781324075967","title":"The Optimist: Sam Altman, Openai, and the Race to Invent the Future","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the company's board. The firing made headlines around the globe: OpenAI is the leader in the race to build AGI--artificial general intelligence, or AI that can think like a human being--and Altman is the most prominent figure in the field. Yet it was mere days before Altman was back running the company he had co-founded, with most of the directors who voted to fire him themselves removed from the board.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe episode was a demonstration of how quickly the industry is moving, and of Altman's power to bend reality to his will. In \u003cem\u003eThe Optimist\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman's rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham's prot?g? and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk, a former friend and now Altman's bitter opponent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHagey conducted more than 250 interviews, with Altman's family, friends, teachers, mentors, co-founders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies, in addition to spending hours with Altman himself. The person who emerges in her portrait is a brilliant dealmaker with a love of risk, who believes in technological progress with an almost religious conviction--yet who sometimes moves too fast for the people around him. With both the promise and peril of AI increasing by the day, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced, revelatory account of the individual who is leading us into what he himself has called \"the intelligence age.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAltman is a figure out of Isaac Asimov or Neal Stephenson. Or he is the author himself: if it feels as though we have all collectively stepped into a science fiction short story, it is Altman who is writing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHagey, Keach:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eKeach Hagey\u003c\/strong\u003e is a reporter at the \u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e. The author of \u003cem\u003eThe King of Content: Sumner Redstone's Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire\u003c\/em\u003e, she lives in Irvington, NY.","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51276889620754,"sku":"9781324075967","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2e7296a6-6452-4d86-830d-1e160b886f17.jpg?v=1747144526","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-optimist-sam-altman-openai-and-the-race-to-invent-the-future-9781324075967","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}