The Liar Running the Most Dangerous Company on Earth

Video Description

In November 2023, Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board. Five days later, he was back – and the board was gone. This is the story of the most important leadership question of our time: who should be steering the development of artificial general intelligence? New video dropping in a few weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss it! CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:16 What the board knew 4:22 The stakes of AGI 5:16 The safety team that vanished 7:18 How employees were silenced 9:17 The slow dismantling of every safeguard 12:58 Conclusion KEY SOURCES & FURTHER READING → Karen Hao, Empire of AI (2025). → Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, “Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?”, The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted (This piece was published after I recorded this video.) → See detailed list of sources below. MY BOOK & ORGANIZATION → Moral Ambition: https://rutgerbregman.com/books/moral-ambition → The School for Moral Ambition: moralambition.org ONE EASY THING YOU CAN DO TODAY Cancel your ChatGPT subscription. GPT is owned by OpenAI. Hit them where it hurts. → QuitGPT.org DETAILED LIST OF SOURCES OpenAI leadership transition announcement https://openai.com/index/openai-announces-leadership-transition/ Removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI (Wikipedia)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Sam_Altman_from_OpenAI Helen Toner on the board's decision (Fortune) https://fortune.com/2024/05/29/openai-sam-altman-helen-toner-ted-ouster-non-profit-board/ Psychological abuse claims and board reasons (TechSpot) https://www.techspot.com/news/103176-lies-psychological-abuse-former-openai-board-members-reasons.html How Silicon Valley protected Altman (WSJ) https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-silicon-valley-friends-f3efcf68 Altman's history at Y Combinator (Washington Post) https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/ CEO integrity documents https://www.openaifiles.org/ceo-integrity OpenAI introduces Superalignment https://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/ Superalignment team dissolved (CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/17/openai-superalignment-sutskever-leike.html 20% compute promise never fulfilled (Fortune) https://fortune.com/2024/05/21/openai-superalignment-20-compute-commitment-never-fulfilled-sutskever-leike-altman-brockman-murati/ Jan Leike resignation statement (Fortune) https://fortune.com/2024/05/17/openai-researcher-resigns-safety/ Karen Hao — Empire of AI excerpt (The Atlantic) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/karen-hao-empire-of-ai-excerpt/682798/ Safety researchers exodus (Fortune) https://fortune.com/2024/08/26/openai-agi-safety-researchers-exodus/ Mira Murati leaves OpenAI (CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/25/openai-cto-mira-murati-announces-shes-leaving-the-company.html Miles Brundage leaves OpenAI (TechCrunch) https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/23/longtime-policy-researcher-miles-brundage-leaves-openai/ Altman silencing former employees (Futurism) https://futurism.com/sam-altman-silencing-former-employees Altman's post on X about NDAs https://x.com/sama/status/1791936857594581428 OpenAI NDA and equity clawback documents (Vox) https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/351132/openai-vested-equity-nda-sam-altman-documents-employees Daniel Kokotajlo profile (TIME) https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2024/7012881/daniel-kokotajlo/ Former employee calls Altman a person of low integrity (Futurism) https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-openai-employee-altman OpenAI fraud claims (Courthouse News) https://courthousenews.com/elon-musks-fraud-claims-against-openai-set-to-go-to-trial/ OpenAI removes "safely" from its mission (The Conversation) https://theconversation.com/openai-has-deleted-the-word-safely-from-its-mission-and-its-new-structure-is-a-test-for-whether-ai-serves-society-or-shareholders-274467 OpenAI $730B valuation (Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-27/openai-finalizes-110-billion-funding-at-730-billion-valuation OpenAI lobbied against AI safety regulation (Washington Post)https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/12/openai-ai-safety-regulation-gpt4/ Altman calls regulation "disastrous" (Washington Post)https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/08/altman-congress-openai-regulation/ Statement on AI risk (safe.ai) https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-risk Altman Senate testimony (Tech Brew) https://www.techbrew.com/stories/2025/05/12/sam-altman-amd-microsoft-coreweave-senate "How to Be Successful" — Sam Altman's blog https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful