Founder Record
What Is Sam Altman Building?
In May 2024 Sam Altman called advertising a last resort and said he hated it. On 9 February 2026 OpenAI began showing ads inside ChatGPT, and by 31 August the line was running at a billion dollars a year. No court has found he defrauded anyone, and a jury rejected the one claim that got that far. What the record does show is a pattern in the distance between what he says and what later turns out to be the case.
By B. O'Connell · 11 September 2026 · 12 min read