Y Combinator President Sam Altman Steps Down to Focus on OpenAI
Sam Altman leaves his daily role as president of Y Combinator to dedicate his time to artificial intelligence research at OpenAI. He remains with the startup accelerator as chairman.
Sam Altman steps down from his position as president of Y Combinator to focus entirely on his work as cochair of OpenAI. The prominent nonprofit research organization explores advanced artificial intelligence initiatives and recently launches a massive reinforcement learning simulator alongside the state-of-the-art language model GPT-2. Altman transitions away from daily operations but stays connected to the accelerator as company chair.
Other partners at Y Combinator take over the additional day-to-day responsibilities as the accelerator continues recruiting its 29th class of startup companies. Since its founding in 2005, the program provides more than 2,000 global startups with $150,000 in backing and three months of intensive business training. The organization also expands its global footprint with a new research facility in Seattle and a Chinese division led by former tech executive Qi Lu.
Y Combinator is simultaneously considering a major geographical shift from its current Mountain View headquarters to San Francisco. Leadership notes that the center of gravity for new startups has clearly moved to the city over the past five years. Relocating allows the accelerator to be closer to its Bay Area alumni and eliminates the increasingly difficult commute for its team.