The word “leader” is bandied about with abandon. So much it’s become almost meaningless. Everyone either already is a leader – or wants to be one. Nobody wants to be a follower – or, more precisely, nobody wants to be perceived as being a follower. As a result, the word, “leader,” has been degraded by inflation. It’s used so often and so loosely its value has been diminished to being almost worthless.
But every now and then an individual comes along who is an exception to the rule. Who is so obviously the real deal, a leader in the authentic sense of this word, the word regains its meaning.
What is the real deal – a leader in the “authentic sense of this word”? Of course, “leader” and “leadership” have been defined by experts in hundreds of different ways. Here I’ll apply just two criteria: 1) a leader has followers; 2) a leader is an agent of change. According to these criteria, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, is a leader.
Altman reminds me of no one so much as Bill Gates. Like Gates, Altman was seized by computers at a young age; started college but quickly dropped out; was an early entrepreneur, innovator, developer, founder, leader, and manager in cutting edge technologies and companies; has a serious and significant philanthropic bent; and a reach that extends far beyond his own domain.
No single individual has been more responsible for the recent mania over artificial intelligence than Sam Altman. Altman has been instrumental in developing artificial intelligence. He has been instrumental in creating the organizational infrastructure necessary to support artificial intelligence. He has been instrumental in obtaining for his company the requisite financial backing. (For example, in 2019 Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI.) He has been instrumental in warning about the risks of artificial intelligence. And he has been instrumental as an ambassador from the world of artificial intelligence to the world that is the rest of us.
Altman is a true believer who is a true leader. He can convert his followers – us – to believe in what he does. And in what he says. Specifically, to believe that “mitigating the risk of extinction from A.A. should be a global priority.” Of course, it’s one thing to get us to take seriously his almost apocalyptic admonitions, it’s another to get us to act on them. As I have suggested in this space before, our leaders, especially our political leaders, are miserably ill-equipped to cope with the latest technologies they fail even to comprehend. While Altman’s talking about artificial intelligence, America’s elected officials are still struggling to cope with social media.
But our incapacity is not for Altman’s lack of trying. Perhaps never has a tech guru worked as hard to get Washington to come to grips with what it can scarcely grasp. In recent weeks Altman has traveled to the nation’s capital to discuss his rapidly changing technology with at least 100 members of congress, with Vice President Kamala Harris, and with people in the President’s cabinet. Unlike other members of Silicon Valley’s elite, most of whom, to all appearances, detest having to make nice in Washington, Altman initiated meetings, jumped at the chance to testify in the Senate, and repeatedly invited lawmakers to impose rules to hold companies such as his to account.
Nor has Altman been satisfied to stay at home. He has taken his show on the road, to Europe and Asia, to Africa and South America. In a political climate in which hostility to China is shared by Democrats and Republicans alike, Altman has even traveled to Hong Kong where he dialed in to a large audience in Beijing. Members cheered as he preached collaboration between researchers in America and China.
Sam Altman’s followers already number in the tens if not hundreds of millions. Sam Altman’s innovations have already changed what we think and how we live. Sam Altman’s the real deal – a leader. Sam Altman’s 38 years old.