--- title: "OpenAI’s CEO Once Bragged About His Hoard of Guns and Gas Masks" description: "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman keeps a pretty low profile, but at a party years ago he admitted to being an apocalypse survivalist prepper." date: "2023-02-03" modified: "2023-02-03" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "OpenAI" - "sam altman" - "survivalists" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI’s CEO Once Bragged About His Hoard of Guns and Gas Masks ![OpenAI CEO Sam Altman keeps a pretty low profile, but at a party years ago he admitted to being an apocalypse survivalist prepper.]() *\Image: Drew Angerer via Getty / Futurism\* ## Altman's Matrix With ChatGPT's hype cycle [barrelling into its third consecutive month](), it's pretty easy to forget not only that Elon Musk was [one of the co-founders of OpenAI](), the artificial intelligence firm that spawned the chatbot, but also that its other co-founders are fairly eccentric themselves. Take this [*New Yorker* profile of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman](), published in October 2016, before Donald Trump was elected. One of the last OpenAI founders who remains at the company, Altman — who also is, in pure Silicon Valley fashion, president of the influential Y Combinator startup incubator — has over the years kept a relatively low profile save for the [occasional outside venture]() and [progressive political stance-making statements]() here and there. But as it turns out, he sounds like a serious character — in some ways oddly similar to Nick Offerman's doomsday prepper character in a recent episode of "[The Last of Us]()." ## Weird Boys For example, we present this off-handed exchange in the *New Yorker* story about being — we shit you not — a survivalist prepper who thinks a lab-made virus might bring about the apocalypse. "I prep for survival," said Altman, per the profile, while sitting around a fire pit at a Y Combinator party. The tech wunderkind explained to the assembled partygoers that he's freaked by the concept of the world ending and wants to prepare to survive it. The two scenarios he gave as examples, and we promise we're not making this up, were a "super contagious" lab-modified virus "being released" onto the world population and "AI that attacks us." "I try not to think about it too much," the OpenAI CEO told the reportedly uncomfortable startup founders surrounding him at that forgotten Silicon Valley gathering. "But I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to." So yeah, that's the guy who is in charge of the company that was initially founded with the philanthropic goal of promoting responsible AI, and which subsequently [decided to go for-profit]() and is now [making money hand over fist]() on its super-sophisticated neural networks that many fear will take their jobs. Do with that information what you will. **More on OpenAI:** [*Whatever You Think of BuzzFeed's AI Quizzes, They're Way Less Horrible Than What CNET Has Been Doing*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()