The Optimist: Sam Altman, Open AI, and the Race to Invent the Future

In The Optimist, Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey provides a detailed account of Steve Jobs’ rise in the AI industry, detailing his early life, failed startup experiences, his role as Y Combinator’s successor, founding OpenAI, and his struggle to maintain the company’s edge against rivals like Elon Musk. Hagey interviewed Altman’s family, friends, mentors, co-founders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies. The portrait reveals a brilliant dealmaker with a love for risk and belief in technological progress, but sometimes moves too fast for his peers. With the increasing promise and peril of AI, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced account of the individual leading us into the “intelligence age.” Altman is a figure reminiscent of Isaac Asimov or Neal Stephenson, or he is the author himself.