Previous posts (which you should read first)

This post is the 11th post in a series of 11 posts about the claims of Sam Altman's sister, Annie Altman. Annie has claimed that Sam sexually abused her for about 9 years as a child, and that she experienced further (non-sexual) abuse from Sam, her brothers, and her mother after that.

The 11 posts are meant to be read in order.

So, if you haven't read the first 10 posts, please read them, in order, before you read this post:

Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 1: Introduction, outline, author's notes
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 2: Annie's lawsuit; the response from Sam, his brothers, and his mother; Timeline
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 3: Timeline, continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 4: Timeline, continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 5: Timeline, continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 6: Timeline, continued continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 7: Timeline, continued continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 8: Timeline, continued continued
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 9: Literature on child sexual abuse and trauma
Sam Altman's sister claims Sam sexually abused her -- Part 10: Sam's response, my perspective

List of Annie's various online accounts:

References, and key excerpts from them

Note: throughout the excerpts, I'll bold sections I feel are particularly important or relevant.

[AA15a] My Denied Appeal Letter For Early College Graduation - originally written
3-30-2015 (according to Annie). Posted on Annie's Medium page on 3-21-2019

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"After several meetings I am writing to make a formal request to graduate at the end of this spring, with almost seven semesters of Tufts residency. I have been a full-time student for six semesters...At the end of this semester I will have completed my Biopsychology major, as well as the university’s distribution and credit requirements."
"Because I have so treasured my experiences, choosing I was ready to leave was extremely difficult. There is simply no need for the sadness and anxiety I’ve felt relating to school; but it took me a while to both figure that out and to accept it. Education should be a gift, however I’ve recently found it to feel more like a burden. I came to Tufts on the pre-medical track, and it was not until this semester that I let go of my rigid attachment to that plan. While a MD or DO degree may still be in my future, I want to more openly look into becoming a nurse or physician’s assistant, as well as a therapist through psychology or social work graduate programs. I feel confident that I want to go into the healthcare field but I am still discovering what role would be the best fit for me and my happiness, allowing me to make the greatest possible positive contribution to the world. I feel extremely thankful for the support I’ve had, both from teachers and friends, in working through this decision. I am also very fortunate for my relationship with my parents and the emotional and logistical support they have given me in this process."
"My dream would be a summer of my own therapy: taking counseling seriously in a way I have never before felt ready to, focusing on art projects, dance classes, and guitar lessons, as well as attending yoga and meditation retreats — working towards whatever euphemism you prefer for “getting my head on straight” or “re-centering.” I then want to spend a year traveling the world, creating my own education while carrying with me many important lessons learned from Tufts."
"Sometimes in meditation the most mindful moments come not from feeling fully aware, but rather from realizing you had momentarily lost your awareness and coming back to the present moment. Depressed feelings usually linger from the past, and anxious thoughts are often about the future — a focus on the present brings me a sense of peace. I have come to the realization that being at Tufts is not giving me the potential to be my best self, and I feel as though staying here another year is not in my best interest. I would like to reiterate that many of my issues are not specific to Tufts, but rather regarding where I am at this point in my life. I am grateful for your time and consideration in reading my words and I hope that you will honor my request."

[YC16a] "Sam Altman: How to Build the Future" -- published September 27, 2016

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14:39:
- Jack: "Switching into a bit -- topic -- of, uh, sort of, money, and sort of, the long-term view of it, and, how people can think about it most clearly, um, I'm actually to start with a quick story, uh, that I think illustrates a bit of --"
- Sam: [head swivels to face Jack, inhales] "-- uh oh --"
- Jack: "-- some of your views. Um, this is from when we were very young, and our grandma gave us each some stock --"
- Sam: [leans back, shifts in chair] "-- oh this is a good story --"
- Jack: "-- in a company --"
- Sam: [waves hand as if granting permission, grins] "-- alright, you can tell this one."
- Jack: "Okay. Uh, so, she gave us each some stock in a company that she thought we would like. Um, and so, as you like to point out, I was heavier as a child, and one --"
- Sam: [smiles, laughs]
- Jack: "-- of the things I liked was Applebee's. And you were hacking away on computers, and one of the things you liked was Apple. And so we each got an equal amount of Apple and Applebee's --"
- Sam: "-- this was like 20 years ago --"
- Jack: "-- this was like 20 years ago --"
- Sam: "-- we were kids --"
- Jack: "-- yeah. And I think neither of us has sold it. In fact, you [pauses, glances to side] nicely brought me my Applebee's stock back from St. Louis recently, uh --"
- Sam: "-- your stock certificates."
- Jack: "My stock certificates --"
- Sam: "-- it was so long ago, it was still paper certificates."
- Jack: "Yeah. And I think, inflation-adjusted, I've probably lost half my value there. Whereas I think your Apple {stock} has gone up something like - I don't even want to think about it - uh, hundreds, hundreds of --"
- Sam: "-- yeah, it's been a lot."
- Jack: "Um. How do you think about, sort of, the long-term willingness, uh, to hold on to things? What are the advantages someone has early in their career? Um, how should people think about money when they're young?"
- Sam: "Yeah, you know, I still have those, uh, Apple shares marked in my brokerage account as 'Grandma's birthday Apple shares.' --"
- Jack [Note: Sam and Jack sometimes talk over/at the same time as each other, which is sort of hard to transcribe]: "Yeah, I -- "
- Sam: "-- I've never sold them."
- Jack: "-- I'll trade you."
- Sam: "No, I'm, I'm good. I'm gonna keep them. I should benchmark them against Applebee's --"
- Jack: [mumbling] "Ah, well --"
- Sam: "Um --" [looks down, laughs] "-- I think that one of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market is time. I think..."

[TF16a] Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" -- published October 3, 2016 in the New Yorker by Tad Friend

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"A blogger recently asked Altman, “How has having Asperger’s helped and hurt you?” Altman told me, “I was, like, ‘Fuck you, I don’t have Asperger’s!’ But then I thought, I can see why he thinks I do. I sit in weird ways”—he folds up like a busted umbrella—“I have narrow interests in technology, I have no patience for things I’m not interested in: parties, most people. When someone examines a photo and says, ‘Oh, he’s feeling this and this and this,’ all these subtle emotions, I look on with alien intrigue.” Altman’s great strengths are clarity of thought and an intuitive grasp of complex systems. His great weakness is his utter lack of interest in ineffective people, which unfortunately includes most of us. I found his assiduousness alarming at first, then gradually endearing. When I remarked, after a few long days together, that he never seemed to visit the men’s room, he said, “I will practice going to the bathroom more often so you humans don’t realize that I’m the A.I.”"
"“Well, I like racing cars,” Altman said. “I have five, including two McLarens and an old Tesla. I like flying rented planes all over California. Oh, and one odd one—I prep for survival.” Seeing their bewilderment, he explained, “My problem is that when my friends get drunk they talk about the ways the world will end. After a Dutch lab modified the H5N1 bird-flu virus, five years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of a lethal synthetic virus being released in the next twenty years became, well, nonzero. The other most popular scenarios would be A.I. that attacks us and nations fighting with nukes over scarce resources.” The Shypmates looked grave. “I try not to think about it too much,” Altman said. “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.”"
"Altman’s mother, a dermatologist named Connie Gibstine, told me, “Sam does keep an awful lot tied up inside. He’ll call and say he has a headache—and he’ll have Googled it, so there’s some cyber-chondria in there, too. I have to reassure him that he doesn’t have meningitis or lymphoma, that it’s just stress.” If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, to Thiel’s house in New Zealand. Thiel told me, “Sam is not particularly religious, but he is culturally very Jewish—an optimist yet a survivalist, with a sense that things can always go deeply wrong, and that there’s no single place in the world where you’re deeply at home.”
"One evening at Altman’s house, his younger brothers, Max and Jack, were teasing him that he should run for President in 2020, when he’d be thirty-five: just old enough. Max, twenty-eight, said, “Who better than you, Sam?” As Altman tried not very vehemently to change the subject, Jack, twenty-seven, said, “It’s not purely little-brother trolling. I do think tech needs a good candidate." “Let’s send the Jewish gay guy!” Altman said. “That’ll work!”
Jack eyed a board game called Samurai on the bookshelf and said, “Sam won every single game of Samurai when we were kids because he always declared himself the Samurai leader: ‘I have to win, and I’m in charge of everything.’ ”
Altman shot back, “You want to play speed chess right now?,” and Jack laughed."
"Max was working at the Y Combinator company Zenefits; Jack co-founded a performance-management company, Lattice, which had just gone through YC. The two brothers moved in with Altman temporarily three years ago and never left. Altman recently hired a designer to upgrade his gray IKEA sofas to gray SummerHouse sofas, and he hung some handsomely framed photographs taken from space, but the house maintains an upscale-student-housing vibe. His mother told me, “I think Sam likes having his brothers around because they knew him when, and can give him pushback in ways that other people can’t. But it’s tricky, with the power dynamic, and I want it to end before it explodes.”"

[JBS17a] https://x.com/JBSchool/status/935883960017674240 - November 29, 2017

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"Sam Altman '03 speaks to students about the development of startups and AI ... and our collective responsibility to make sure they benefit everyone. https://jburroughs.org/news-and-events/sam-altman-03-startups-ai-for-good #JBSalum"

[SA18a] https://x.com/sama/status/959528971913146368 - posted 2-2-2018

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"Check out my sister {Annie} on youtube!"

[AA18a] The Speech I Gave At My Dad’s Funeral - originally read aloud at Jerry's funeral service on 5-28-2018 (according to Annie); posted on Annie's Medium page on 3-28-2019

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"Read at Central Reform Congregation on May 28, 2018:"
"My dad trusted my intuition more than I ever have. He often reminded me of the strength of my mind-body connection, a concept I am both extremely passionate about and skilled at underestimating. He created and held space for all of my feelings, and those of you who have talked to me ever know that I have more than a few of those all of the time."
"Sam said we could each talk for about five minutes, less if possible to not make you lovely people sit here all day, and Jack correctly pointed out how I will definitely be using all five of my minutes."
"You may know that I come from a family that loves to rank things in order to make meaning of them. I love that too, and I also love talking about feelings, as someone who has so many of them. This led me to make a list about a year ago ranking my immediate family in terms of emotional expressivity, from most to least. Obviously I take “first place” on this list, which is probably part of why I wanted to make it. Next comes my dad, then Max, then Jack, and then Sam and mom alternate what would be first place if this list went from minimal to Annie levels of emotional expression. As I typed this out last night, Jack immediately questioned my list and checked in with Julia, his wife, for her opinion. (She agreed with my list, for the record.) It led to an interesting discussion on how different people express different emotions, which my dad knows is, along with family movie night, pretty much all I’ve ever wanted from my family. Also Jack last night, “I can just keep talking if you want me to write your speech, just keep it really meta, you can have my five minutes, it’ll be great.” Sam, I may really need Jack’s minutes here as when I read this out loud it was about 8 minutes — I’ll do my best to talk a little faster."
"My dad and I were always very close, talking about all the feels, all the music, and all the athletic activities. I fondly remember us sharing boxes of chocolates when I was little, and by share I mean I would bite each chocolate in half, happily devour it if its insides were cream or more chocolate, and promptly stick it back together and give it my dad if its insides were fruity or coconut. My dad’s memory of this story was that he was the one getting the “good” deal — he honestly believed he was the luckier one, sitting there eating spit-covered chocolate."
"We grew even closer in the past few years, as he was my #1 supporter and confidant in all my choices and adventures, most recently in moving to the Big Island of Hawaii, teaching yoga knowing full well it is not a “career” one can “support themselves” with, and even choosing to live in a car for a few months (re: there is little money in yoga and also Annie goes into extreme minimal hippie phase). He was characteristically 1000% supportive of my current creative endeavor of writing a book called “The Humanual,” about how no one knows how to human and also there are reoccurring themes in the humaning thing. He even began to say things like I did along the lines of, “this would be perfect for this part of The Humanual.”"
"My dad came out to visit me in February {2018}, when I finally moved into a non-mobile home. He was one month into “Seaganism,” as he brilliantly termed the concept of eating a vegan diet with the addition of seafood. He made the shift with the new year, after patiently sitting with me through my angry vegan phase, welcoming in my phase of being anti-factory farming rather than anti-animal consumption, and listening as I did my best to clumsily describe how the people I was the most annoying towards about eating a more plant based diet were the ones I loved the most. During his visit I pointed out several places friends of mine like with local seafood, and instead he decided to just share food with me the whole time. We made smoothie bowls, tofu scramble, and pancakes, we went out for Thai food, veggie sandwiches, and chili and we split everything. He was so excited to learn to prepare new foods and when he got back to St. Louis I received almost daily texts with pictures of the meals he was making for himself. From his visit onwards he was eating fully plant based, with the exception of consuming whey powder and other forms of dairy accidentally. My brothers are convinced that he changed his diet to be closer to me, much like his interest in rowing and involvement with the St. Louis Rowing Club, and I know they are right."
"Grief shows how much love there was to lose, reminding me of the quote that, “You can never love someone as much as you can miss them.” He is no longer physically here and I miss him already. I do not get another in person conversation with him, a video chat or phone call, a deep talk about life while we stretch with our legs up the wall. There is no one I want to dissect which part of The Humanual this whole situation is supposed to be, along with all my feelings about it, more than my dad."
"In January {2018} my dad sent me a text, part of which read, “And just for clarification, I don’t just support your lifestyle now or your physical and emotional endeavors now; I support your life. I will always support your life. These are aspects of your life, so I support those too. And there is not a “now”, as Yoda might say. There is only life, for as long as that may be.”"
"My dad was active, with people, and doing what he loved, I had said up until his last day before my mom correctly clarified it as “his last hour.”"
"I will keep him alive through me, through the genes and memories of his I am lucky enough to hold on to. I will do my best to see the good in people and give them the benefit of the doubt, to remember that my only “job” in life is to be happy, and to works towards trusting myself and my intuition half as much as you believed in me. I will allow myself to express all my emotions as openly as I choose, especially the ones that involve hugging our loved ones often and reminding them how much they are loved. I love you more than all the words I’ve ever said, will say, and could say. Thank you for being my dad; a true legend by the Babe standards, a testament to the power of love and community, and the only person who would have genuinely encouraged this speech to be even longer if that was what I wanted. I will always be a daddy’s girl and specifically yours."

[AA18b] Reclaiming my memories - posted on 11-8-2018

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"Two months ago I met with Joe K, the owner of Urban Exhale Hot Yoga, to discuss the podcast episode we were going to record together. (I have since recorded podcasts with four other teachers at the studio and am completely unsure how to express my gratitude to Joe — honestly perhaps less words about it?) While I would be the one asking Joe questions on the podcast, he had an important question for me. With all the casual profundity of a yoga teacher, Joe asked, “what is your earliest memory?”
"Without pause for an inhale I responded, “probably a panic attack.” I feel like Joe did his best asana poker face, based on projecting my own insecurities and/or the hyper-vigilant observance that comes with anxiety."
"I began having panic attacks at a young age. I felt the impending doom of death before I had any concept of death. (Do I really have any concept of death now, though? Does anyone??) I define panic attacks as feeling “too alive,” like diving off the deep end into awareness of existence without any proper scuba gear or knowledge of free diving. Panic attacks, I’ve learned, come like an ambulance flashing lights and blaring a siren indicating that my mind and my body are… experiencing a missed connection in terms of communication — they’re refusing to listen to each other. More accurately: my mind is disregarding the messages from my body, convinced she can think her way through feelings, and so my body goes into panic mode like she’s on strike."
"I went to a sound bath at the yoga studio about a month ago, the second sound bath I’ve ever attended. (I cried at both and if you know me you know that I am happy about things that help me cry.) Sound baths are a guided meditation where you lay in corpse pose and receive sounds of specific frequencies, allowing vibrations to “wash” over and through you. Some shit is bound to surface in the tides."
"My dad died five months ago now, and to say I’ve learned a lot is an enormous understatement. I was and am a “daddy’s girl.” The most recent panic attack, and perhaps darkest one I’ve experienced, happened the week he died. My dad was one of the most genuinely positive people I’ve ever come across. He had an incredible capacity to continually focus on the light, the good, what was “right” in any situation. I felt his presence during parts of the sound bath — a concept past me would have rolled her eyes about."
"Laying in bed later that night, Joe’s question popped back into my consciousness with a kind “please make your way into child’s pose.” I realized I had deceived myself (classic humaning) with my response to his question, “what is your earliest memory?”
"Joe, and whoever is reading, I would like to formally change my answer. I am also without an exact answer. I am non-sarcastically “trusting the process” to potentially receive one. I know that a panic attack is not my answer, and my ego likes to remind itself that knowing what is not my truth leads me at least somewhat closer to said truth.""
"I can reflect on and connect with feelings of panic and still have space to choose a positive perspective. Searching for ways to cope with existence has lead me to yoga, dance, singing, ukulele, cooking, baking, writing… to asking all the questions I know to ask so that I can open myself up to knowing just how many more questions life has to offer. Without panic attacks, I may have lived my whole life without starting a YouTube channel, a podcast, or this blog."
"Emotions come and go, so it keeps seeming. Emotions and memory are directly linked, re: the amygdala. I have little to no control over my emotional response; I do have control over my reaction and subsequent actions."
"I write my own history. Though TBD on the first memory of that history. Here’s to exploring."

[AA18c] 21. Podcastukkah #5: Feedback is feedback with Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman - All Humans Are Human | Podcast on Spotify. - published 12-7-2018

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A relevant snippet begins around ~24:30.
- Context: "projection" is a recurring motif of discussion throughout the podcast episode.
- Annie: "This is where, well -- I do believe that projecting can be deflecting and it can be another buzzword in a lot of ways, and also, as you brought up, it points to very intense feelings and very, as you brought up Max {Altman}, {with the} human psychology of things, of, in some ways, we're wired to remember painful experiences so that we do learn from them, and so - to remember negativity, and to remember those things --"
- Sam {interjecting}: "More than that, I think one thing we're particularly wired for, I don't know why, is to not like hypocrisy..."
Note: as reported in Elizabeth Weil's nymag article, Sam (and Jack) refuse (Annie's requests to) share a link to the podcast. Annie finds this unfair, seeing as how Sam had been willing to help his other siblings' careers in quite major ways. Sam (and Jack) apparently cited that the podcast episode "did not align with their businesses" [EW23a] as the reason they refused to post the link.
From [EW23a]: "Among her various art projects, Annie makes a podcast called All Humans Are Human. The first Thanksgiving after their father’s death, all the brothers agreed to record an episode with her. Annie wanted to talk on air about the psychological phenomenon of projection: what we put on other people. The brothers steered the conversation into the idea of feedback — specifically, how to give feedback at work. After she posted the show online, Annie hoped her siblings, particularly Sam, would share it. He’d contributed to their brothers’ careers. Jack’s company, Lattice, had been through YC. “I was like, ‘You could just tweet the link. That would help. You don’t want to share your sister’s podcast that you came on?’” He did not. “Jack and Sam said it didn’t align with their businesses.”" [EW23a]

[AA19b] Period lost, period found - posted on 2-21-2019

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"I started taking birth control pills at the age of 15 (I’m currently 25) and decided to stop taking them right before my 23rd birthday {~2017}. Also around this same time {~2017} I finished tapering off of Zoloft, which I started taking at age 13 {~2007} to help with symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression. Also also around this time {~2017} I drastically altered my diet...I promptly lost my period and learned that changes relating to diet, hormonal birth control, and psychiatric medications are three of the main factors that can disrupt hormonal balance (stress being the baseline factor)."
"I’m experiencing a second puberty, or maybe an aftershock of sorts from first puberty and/or a year without my period. It feels like a hormonal “do-over” filled with moments of deja-vu: three new crushes in one week, intense crying and laughter in the same hour, and generally going about my day acting like I’m far less confused by all this internal “shifting” than I’m actually feeling. Plus days that feel exceptionally “average” leaving me extra confused about how dramatic life felt the day before. I’m fortunate to have received a liberal education and even so there were inevitable gaps in the information I was given, and open to receiving, about puberty."
"I majored in Biopsychology in college, with a minor in dance, and took all the prerequisite courses for medical school. Then I noped out of the pre-med route to focus on movement, writing, comedy, music, and food. I got certified as a yoga teacher, worked for an online CSA (community-supported agriculture) company, began writing more frequently, started slowly going to open mic nights and putting videos on YouTube, and began a podcast and this blog. I’m learning to give myself space to explore what genuinely excites me without justification and I’ve felt levels of self-consciousness around my career swerve that I had not experienced since first puberty. HOW will I get my intellectual ego stroked without constant science classes? How can art really have no “right” answer? Am I really the only one who can validate how my feelings feel??"
"It’s been almost a year now since I got my period back and I feel I’ve been going through a sort of spiritual and scientific second puberty, to continue the soap operatics. A year extra filled with learning about my body’s cycle(s) and signals. Witnessing my hormones re-regulate has felt parallel to to self-soothing, not that I consciously remember learning that, and my first time with “my moon.” I started eating eggs again, including runny yolks for the first time, and ate fish for the first time in my life because my body very literally demanded them. A year without my period, after a decade of having it, felt like equal parts reset and emptiness."
"I believe a large portion of shame takes root during puberty and then manifests as sexual repression, (sexual) aggression, body dysmorphia, addiction, and/or mood disorders. I can say for certain that has been my experience. Shame encourages ignorance by stifling conversations. Additionally, shame creates a feedback loop where ignorance is shamed and so questions and curiosity are discouraged."

[AA19c] 18 reasons I spent 18 years criticizing my appearance - published 3-6-2019

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"1. OCD
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
...
6. A belief that any body’s appearance is fixed its entire lifetime
7. A belief that anything in this physical world is fixed, ever
...
11. A belief that I could control my body completely with enough will power
12. A belief that controlling my body could control my entire life
13. A belief that controlling my body could control its inevitable decay (lack of knowledge that fearing death is fearing actually living life)
14. Equating control with peace and happiness
15. A tendency towards being self-critical"

[VLA19a] Meet Annie Altman -- Voyage LA -- published September 24, 2019

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Interviewer: "Annie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far."
Annie Altman: "I’m passionate about mind-body connection, and connection generally. Part of this comes from ways I’ve felt extremely disconnected through several mental health labels and experiences. I’m extra-extroverted, and very curious – when I was little I would introduce myself to strangers with my full name and ask them how their day was going. I love learning, I love learning about people, I love using learning as a tool to help people. I took all of the classes to go to medical school and then noped off of that path, tapering away from academia through work in two different UCSF labs. I accepted that my mental health prefers creativity, and forcing myself into the science field eventually showed itself to be just that: force. I got existential and came to understand that enjoyment of life is meant to be prioritized because no one knows “how to: human” anymore or any less than any other human. There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to be a human. Science isn’t “right” and neither is art. Science and art are connected, and connection seems to be where all the themes of life play out. I began to feel an imperative to “get the word out” about no one ever fully “knowing” what they’re doing as a human being, mostly as a way to self-therapize and remind myself. I need the reminder that it’s okay for me to have no idea what I’m “ultimately” doing, and that I’m primarily a human being. Accepting my love of making things and noticing how clearly art helps me let go of my defenses, I feel that making art is the most effective way for me to communicate. As I was transitioning away from becoming a physician, I slowly began putting videos on YouTube (the first-ever being a comedy song called “A Song for Bo Burnham” inspired by his stand up special I’d just watched) and going to open mic nights for comedy and music. My “official” parting ways with academia was a three-week yoga teacher training on the Big Island of Hawai’i, after which I came back to the East Bay Area to work for an online CSA company called Farm Fresh to You. Five months later I sold my things and moved to Hawai’i, where I chose to live in a car for three months out of my nine months living there. I felt compelled to experience living in a car, and my need to find a way to make this idea (this reminder that had become my focal point instead of medical school) into a succinct art form that felt authentic to me, made the openness of more free time and less living costs incredibly appealing. I began a book version of my idea: no one knows what they’re doing in their human doings and beingness, and that’s really beautiful because it connects us all. It’s like pooping or death. On island I taught yoga, I made more YouTube videos, I ghost-wrote for a YouTuber, I drove for Lyft, I explored outside, I met new people. I wrote more for my book version of the idea than I had ever written on one consecutive thing, journaling my way through all I had learned in life so far and observing for patterns. I reflected a lot alone, especially while living in the car, and I reflected a lot with the people I met who were open to questions about their human experience. My original idea had expanded to say that know one knows how to human, and also that there are themes of being human that all humans encounter, and that talking about these themes helps everyone. I moved to LA last August while transitioning my idea to a movie version about me writing the book version – it was all very Hollywood. I worked as a ghostwriter for a painter and also as a budtender at a dispensary. To support what I was working on creatively, and to help me find much-needed clarity, I began a podcast. I was feeling overwhelmed with non-numerical data and the weight of taking art and life overly seriously. Some part of me also knew that I needed to make a project where it was built-in for me to ask for help. I decided the podcast would be a conversational interview about a human truth, to serve as a reminder that we are all connected through our truths, our joys, and our challenges. I know that open dialogue is super important to me and feel that is where to start with what “goods” I offer. The podcast was originally called “True Shit” (I learned iTunes will not allow even “self-censored” expletives), and that is still the premise of what is now called The Annie Altman Show. Starting the podcast made it clear to me that my overall idea was meant to be verbal. I circled back to my love of stand-up and live performance and knew that the art I was making was intended to be a one-woman show, that has settled on the title “The Hum|Annie.” The Annie Altman Show is what I call the podcast and other creative projects – videos, blogs, food, comedy, and more – that serve as “field mesearch” for the idea that has evolved into The Hum|Annie. The Hum|Annie is an interactive stand up comedy musical philosophy show about how no one ever fully “figures out” how to human, how there’s 10 “C” themes to the human experience, that are connected by and exist within the “C” theme of connection, and how maximizing resource equity minimizing human suffering. These themes in this organization are a tool to check in with our mental, physical, and emotional (which is, to me, synonymous to spiritual) health. That’s what finding and using them has given to me and what I am offering for others to experiment with for them. The Hum|Annie reminds me that I can only be an expert on myself and my humaning, and explores what this can offer to humanity. The Hum|Annie makes fun of things like being my form of brevity, uses my life story to examine common themes in all life stories, and reflects on how self-deprecation differs from honest self-reflection. I believe my role of service is in asking questions and making connections, using tools like play, comedy, and music. I’m an intense proponent of experiential learning and believe doing and sharing my own learning is my most effective tool to offer. Making these projects and this show is me walking the walk of putting my own oxygen mask on first.
Interviewer: "Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?"
Annie Altman: "Yes and no, and it’s been a weird and fun combination. I intentionally took a 180 turn within my spiraling circle life path, which is challenging for anyone to do smoothly and I was especially clumsy. The mishaps led to a lot more for me to learn about, such as accepting “mistakes” as a necessary part of any learning process. My relationship with my family as we all grieve has been the most challenging struggle along this process. My dad died from a heart attack on May 2018, on the same day I had a flight booked from Hawaii to St. Louis. We had video chatted the day before and were super close. For me, the grieving process feels like going through all the cycles again and again in slightly different ways in a spiral. The Hum|Annie is dedicated to him. I’m grateful that he was (and is) this project’s biggest cheerleader. The Hum|Annie uses all the knowledge I’ve received from my mental health and grieving journeys so far, which means I must first unpack and sit with how that knowledge impacts me personally. I use the term “mesearch” because all research is biased by the researcher, which, like the placebo effect, is a mostly ignored truth in mainstream Western medical practices. I support scientific and spiritual practices and I am learning to support where I am of the most service to humanity as a whole. I believe there is so much that can benefit humanity through connecting different practices and ideas. Honest reflection, of myself and the world, has been and continues to be a satisfying challenge. For me, sharing parts of it helps my processing.
Interviewer: "We’d love to hear more about your work."
Annie Altman: "I specialize in an interest to help connect science and spirituality through exploring my interests in both of them, using myself and my human connections as experiments. I’m grateful to have found a way, through much exploration, that feels authentic to me right now to do my own mental health work, to redirect grief and shame, and to have the privilege of the space to do that work. My intention in sharing parts of my own process is to help make space for others to have the same baseline of privilege I’ve been fortunate enough to receive. People need access to resources to do their own work. I’ve been lucky enough to interact with a variety of guests on the podcast so far, and I’m grateful for the ways I’ve been impacted by each of the conversations. The style of the show has both deepened and lightened as I learn to first relax with myself. This series aims to make use of my black-and-white thinking patterns to help myself and others notice those tendencies more easily, and to help those with more gray-space thought patterns who are curious to learn more about a different perspective from theirs. I feel strongly that open discourse about being human, connecting all our internal parts, and connecting with other humans and the world around us, are all necessary parts of the process of equitable resource distribution. Prioritization of honesty, open communication, and curiosity about connection are very important to me.
Interviewer: "Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?"
Annie Altman: "I’m grateful for the words of Maya Angelou for this one, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” From reflections with friends and with myself, I also believe that success is liking who you do your “what” and “it” with, as well as liking the feeling you experience of connection in your doing and beingness. To me, success is connection. To experience connection, I needed to first accept the disconnection I was experiencing and ignoring on my previous path. Part of my process of learning is also unlearning – unlearning a dislike of myself, of what I was doing, of how I was doing it, of who I was doing it with, and of the feelings I was experiencing that I accepted as “how life is.” I feel it important to embrace disconnection as a part of connection, and remember that there are things to be learned from them both. As action is more accessible for me as a starting point right now, I started with figuring out how to really like what I do. I am only doing what I’m doing because I’ve allowed myself to pursue connection – with myself, with others, and with this rock we’re all floating around on together for a little while. My honesty and curiosity about connection are very important to me. I also believe it’s important to address the financial privilege that I had to graduate from college without debt and to have a Biopsychology degree. That privilege has allowed me the flexibility to give most of my attention to this project for the past two years while working a variety of jobs that allow me to explore different interests."

[AA20b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1262811125684584448 -- published May 19, 2020

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"I You’re The Only One Hurting From Holding A Secret Then Maybe Stop Holding It
~a story thread~"
"This time a year ago, I gave notice to leave a job I enjoyed because of being in paperwork-process of money left to me from my dad that I was notified of a year after he died. I decided to use this privilege."
"I openly shared about my plan to use the next six months to finish writing a script that was and is extremely important to me, to give more time to the podcast and other other projects, and mostly to give myself more time both to grieve..."
"...and to manage my physical and emotional health that needed attention."
"Despite their already enormous wealth, the rest of my immediate biological relatives choose to use the option they were then given to override my dad’s wishes and withhold the money."
"The podcast episode that three of these immediate biological relatives came on before those happenings, and refuse to post about, was originally supposed to be about “projecting” and instead became about “feedback.”"
"Notice there’s not a single “I feel” statement here."

[AA20a] An open letter to relatives - published 9-22-2020

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To me, this letter seems to be somewhat sarcastic. Annie is "thanking" her relatives in a way that carries subliminal criticisms.
Example: "Thank you for strengthening my sense of self. I am where I am and doing what I’m doing in part because of each of you. My tenacity and gentleness to take care of myself has increased because of you. The lessons I’ve received from my relationships with you have shifted my perspectives beyond their limitations. Thank you for providing contrast." -- What I think Annie is referencing here is how her relatives screwed her out of her money and (esp. Sam) abused her for a very long time. To this, she had to adapt by developing better ways to take care of herself, and was also forced to move around in a state of relative financial poverty.
- As with the rest of the letter, Annie includes seemingly-upbeat, purposefully vague one-liners throughout the letter, such as "Thank you for providing me with contrast." (The implied negative connotation isn't too hard to infer.)

[CCF21a] CCF At Home with Sam Altman -- published 1-14-2021

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Beginning at 3:17:
- Sam Altman: "We had like a gate out of our backyard, and there was a hole cut in the gate of Captain {Elementary School}"
Beginning at 3:41:
- Charlie Brennan: "And at Captain School, I understand, at the age of 8, you had your first computer. So, in the second grade, you were becoming computer-literate. Is that accurate?"
- Sam Altman: "Yeah...we got one at home when I was, yeah, maybe in 3rd grade, something like that."
Beginning at 4:20:
- Sam Altman: "I actually just bought, the same computer we had at home, which was a Mac LC II, I found one on eBay, and I was amazed how much I remembered about the actual hardware of it. Haven't seen one in 25 years or something."
- Charlie Brennan: "And from the Ralph M. Captain {Elementary} School, you took your studies to Wydown Middle {School}?"
- Sam Altman: "Yes."
- Charlie Brennan: "Most people don't like middle school. How 'bout you, Sam Altman?"
- Sam Altman: "Uh, I mean, it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good on the whole. I wouldn't want to go back to middle school, but, yeah, I think I have fond memories at this point...high school was great."
- Charlie Brennan: "High school was John Burroughs {School}, of course?"
- Sam Altman: "Yeah. I think high school was easier than middle school."
Beginning at 24:31:
- Charlie Brennan: "At one point, you were the CEO of Reddit for 10 days."
- Sam Altman: "That's true."
- Charlie Brennan: "What was the story there?"
- Sam Altman: "We had a CEO quit during a board meeting, which is like, a very rare thing to happen, never seen it before or since. Uh, and it took us a little while to figure out the succession plan, we were caught totally off guard. So, everybody -- the management team sort of, yeah, technically reported to me...I was a recent investor, and {had} joined the board, and kind of, was the only person local. So, I got very involved for a few days, and uh, then, we had an interim CEO, and then after that the original founder returned to run the company."

[AA21d] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1387565125213646849 -- posted April 29, 2021

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"Have you ever had to prove the $100 MRI co-pay needed to confirm medically necessary equipment to a blood relative with a net worth of well over $100 million?"
"A very strange first world pain"

[AA21c] An Open Letter To The EMDR Trauma Therapist Who Fired Me For Doing Sex Work - published 6-7-2021

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It seems Annie was trying to use EMDR to heal her PTSD, which, as she claims, resulted from having flashbacks to and stronger memories the abuse, e.g. sexual abuse from Sam, that she was subjected to during her childhood.
It seems her therapist rejected her as a client on the basis of her position as a sex worker.

[AA21a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1459696444802142213 -- posted on
11-13-2021

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"I experienced sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and technological abuse from my biological siblings, mostly Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman."

[AA21b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1459696500540248068 -- posted on 11-13-2021

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"I feel strongly that others have also been abused by these perpetrators. I’m seeking people to join me in pursuing legal justice, safety for others in the future, and group healing. Please message me with any information, you can remain however anonymous you feel safe."

[AA22e] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1498930067870818305 -- posted on March 2, 2022

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"Not to brag like the drug bro I am, but I took 100mg of Zoloft for 10 years soooooo"

[AA22d] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1528575757529755650 -- posted on May 23, 2022

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"Was he “really aware of his sexuality really young” or was he abusing his little sister to figure it out hmmmmmm"

[AA22b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1551745115588157447 -- posted on July 25, 2022

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"What does it say about YOUR mental health, to tell me that I’m somehow both too mentally unwell to make my own decisions and too mentally well to receive emotional or tangible support?"
"One reason of many for no contact"

[AA22c] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1558896115293900800 -- posted on August 14, 2022

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"“Take this drug you’ve already used for 10 years, that you worked supported by professionals to stop, and I’ll give you financial support for basic needs while you’re in a walking boot from tendinopathy and managing early PCOS symptoms making you unable to work ‘normal’ hours”"

[AA22a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1568689744951005185 -- posted on
9-10-2022

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"Sam and Jack, I know you remember my Torah portion was about Moses forgiving his brothers. “Forgive them father for they know not what they’ve done” Sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and technological abuse. Never forgotten."

[AA23a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1635704398939832321 - posted on
3-14-2023

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"I’m not four years old with a 13 year old “brother” climbing into my bed non-consensually anymore. (You’re welcome for helping you figure out your sexuality.) I’ve finally accepted that you’ve always been and always will be more scared of me than I’ve been of you."
- Note: The "brother" in question (obviously) being Sam Altman.

[AA23x] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1661087295657869312 - posted on 3-23-2023

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"Must be strange to stalk your younger sibling’s social media after she went no contact from your abuse."
"Must be stranger to see her pussy and asshole that you touched non-consensually, now posted publicly."

[AA23f] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1640418558927863808 -- posted on
3-27-2023

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{Jokingly} "{Sam's 'nuclear backpack'} may also hold our Dad and Grandma’s trusts {which} him {Sam} and my birth mother are still withholding from me, knowing I started sex work for survival because of being sick and broke with a millionaire “brother”"
Note: [PO23] is a reply to this post.

[NYT23a] The ChatGPT King Isn’t Worried, but He Knows You Might Be (archive link) -- by Cade Metz, New York Times -- published March 31, 2023

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"To spend time with Mr. Altman is to understand that Silicon Valley will push this technology forward even though it is not quite sure what the implications will be. At one point during our dinner in 2019, he paraphrased Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, who believed the atomic bomb was an inevitability of scientific progress. “Technology happens because it is possible,” he said. (Mr. Altman pointed out that, as fate would have it, he and Oppenheimer share a birthday.)"
...
"Mr. Altman’s weekend home is a ranch in Napa, Calif., where farmhands grow wine grapes and raise cattle."
"During the week, Mr. Altman and his partner, Oliver Mulherin, an Australian software engineer, share a house on Russian Hill in the heart of San Francisco. But as Friday arrives, they move to the ranch, a quiet spot among the rocky, grass-covered hills. Their 25-year-old house is remodeled to look both folksy and contemporary. The Cor-Ten steel that covers the outside walls is rusted to perfection."
...
"He is not necessarily motivated by money. Like many personal fortunes in Silicon Valley that are tied up in a wide variety of public and private companies, Mr. Altman’s wealth is not well documented. But as we strolled across his ranch, he told me, for the first time, that he holds no stake in OpenAI. The only money he stands to make from the company is a yearly salary of around $65,000 — “whatever the minimum for health insurance is,” he said — and a tiny slice of an old investment in the company by Y Combinator."
"His longtime mentor, Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, explained Mr. Altman’s motivation like this:"
"'Why is he working on something that won’t make him richer? One answer is that lots of people do that once they have enough money, which Sam probably does. The other is that he likes power.'"
...
"In the late 1990s, the John Burroughs School, a private prep school named for the 19th-century American naturalist and philosopher, invited an independent consultant to observe and critique daily life on its campus in the suburbs of St. Louis."
"The consultant’s review included one significant criticism: The student body was rife with homophobia."
"In the early 2000s, Mr. Altman, a 17-year-old student at John Burroughs, set out to change the school’s culture, individually persuading teachers to post “Safe Space” signs on their classroom doors as a statement in support of gay students like him. He came out during his senior year and said the St. Louis of his teenage years was not an easy place to be gay."
...
"'He has a natural ability to talk people into things,' Mr. Graham said. 'If it isn’t inborn, it was at least fully developed before he was 20. I first met Sam when he was 19, and I remember thinking at the time: ‘So this is what Bill Gates must have been like.''”
"The two got to know each other in 2005 when Mr. Altman applied for a spot in Y Combinator's first class of start-ups. He won a spot — which included $10,000 in seed funding — and after his sophomore year at Stanford University, he dropped out to build his new company, Loopt, a social media start-up that let people share their location with friends and family."
"He now says that during his short stay at Stanford, he learned more from the many nights he spent playing poker than he did from most of his other college activities. After his freshman year, he worked in the artificial intelligence and robotics lab overseen by Prof. Andrew Ng, who would go on to found the flagship A.I. lab at Google. But poker taught Mr. Altman how to read people and evaluate risk."
"It showed him 'how to notice patterns in people over time, how to make decisions with very imperfect information, how to decide when it was worth pain, in a sense, to get more information,' he told me while strolling across his ranch in Napa. 'It’s a great game.'"
"After selling Loopt for a modest return, he joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner. Three years later, Mr. Graham stepped down as president of the firm and, to the surprise of many across Silicon Valley, tapped a 28-year-old Mr. Altman as his successor."
...
"He also began working on several projects outside the investment firm, including OpenAI, which he founded as a nonprofit in 2015 alongside a group that included Elon Musk. By Mr. Altman’s own admission, YC grew increasingly concerned he was spreading himself too thin."
...
"In the mid-2010s, Mr. Altman shared a three-bedroom, three-bath San Francisco apartment with his boyfriend at the time, his two brothers and their girlfriends. The brothers went their separate ways in 2016 but remained on a group chat, where they spent a lot of time giving one another guff, as only siblings can, his brother Max remembers. Then, one day, Mr. Altman sent a text saying he planned to raise $1 billion for his company’s research."
...
"Mr. Brockman, OpenAI’s president, said Mr. Altman’s talent lies in understanding what people want. 'He really tries to find the thing that matters most to a person — and then figure out how to give it to them,' Mr. Brockman told me. 'That is the algorithm he uses over and over.'"

[WSJ23a] The Contradictions of Sam Altman, AI Crusader (alternate archive link) -- by Berber Jin and Keach Hagey, The Wall Street Journal -- published on 3-31-2023

"One of his clearest childhood memories is sitting up late in his bedroom in suburban St. Louis, playing with the Macintosh LC II he had gotten for his eighth birthday when he had the sudden realization: “Someday, the computer was going to learn to think,” he said."
"During one of his last visits to his grandmother, who died last year, he bought her groceries and then admitted to his mother that he hadn’t been to a grocery store in four or five years, she said."
"Dressed in the typical tech CEO uniform of a gray hoodie, jeans and blindingly white sneakers, Mr. Altman described a much more modest upbringing."
"Mr. Altman grew up in a suburb of St. Louis, the eldest of four children born to Connie Gibstine, a dermatologist, and Jerry Altman, who worked various jobs, including as a lawyer, and died five years ago. The senior Mr. Altman’s true vocation was running affordable housing nonprofits, his family said, and he spent years trying to revitalize St. Louis’s downtown."
"Dr. Gibstine said her son was working the family’s VCR at age 2 and rebooking his own plane ticket home from camp at 13. By the time he was in third grade, he was helping teachers at his local public school troubleshoot computer problems, she said. In middle school, he transferred to the private John Burroughs School."

[AA23l] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1697712455013847372 -- posted on
4-21-2023

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Note: this poem seems to be pretty clearly talking about Sam.

[AA23k] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1649586084928704512 -- posted on
4-21-2023

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"I got diagnosed with PCOS, and got walking boot for a third time in 8 years for the same tendinopathy, all in the first year of grieving my Dad."
"I had a history since childhood of OCD, anxiety, depression, IBS, disorder eating - all covers for PTSD. Also tonsillitis yay"
"I got notified almost exactly a year after his death about my Dad leaving me money, so make a plan to stop working for 6 months and focus on my health.
"I got notified almost exactly a year after his death about my Dad leaving me money, so make a plan to stop working for 6 months and focus on my health. I had started a podcast and had other art proects I could do sitting down!"
"After quitting my dispensary job, my relatives find a loophole to withhold said money. They knew the health conditions and my plan, and they're millionaires. I sell some things, go back to an older job, and eventually ask (for the first time ever) my millionaire relatives for financial help and am essentially told to "work harder." I got $100 for an ankle MRI copay, after much 'discussion'"
"I do two family therapy sessions and am professionally advised to stop doing family therapy sessions."
"I move back to Big Island so I can work trade for rent, be around community, and actually heal. I'm offered {by Sam} a diamond made from Dad's ashes instead of money for rent or groceries. Dad just wanted cremation."
"I go {opt for} no contact with relatives."
"I start spicy work which ends up being way more therapeutic than anticipated, though definitely challenging."
"I end up moving to Maui. Unemployment comes through after identity theft, so I have a deposit {on?} a place to live."
"I have two years of remembering horrific things I'd buried and told myself I made up, and experience adult SAs that brought up even more memories."

[AA23j] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1655474350777311233 -- posted on
5-8-2023

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Annie states that (Sam's) technological abuse (shadowbanning) has made it hard for her to make an income / financially support herself.
She refers to Sam as her "first client" in her (current) sexual line of work.
"{I have been} under the thumb of this deeply depressed human {Sam Altman}, dealing with his guilt about our dad dying much earlier than he needed to - because our dad was not given money while he was alive, even though he'd had heart issues, and was 67 - can you imagine being a fucking multimillionaire and not giving your dad -- that's for me to talk about in therapy"
Context: Annie is (somewhat jokingly) talking about making shirts saying she survived Sam Altman's shadowbanning. "The shirts - they're gonna say 'I survived Sam Altman's shadowbanning.' And it's gonna be such a clusterfuck - because the longer that this has gone on - and it's been 4 years now - I no longer care about sounding like a crazy person. There's so much proof - go to my Instagram for "Hi Censorship" highlights. Also, the amount of friends I have had and tested things out with - and seen, when they share things, {versus} when I share things; sharing anything about the podcast..."

[EW23a] Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age, by Elizabeth Weil. Published 9-25-2023.

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"Altman grew up the oldest of four siblings in suburban St. Louis: three boys, Sam, Max, and Jack, each two years apart, then a girl, Annie, nine years younger than Sam."
"In 1993, for his 8th birthday, Altman’s parents — Connie Gibstine, a dermatologist, and Jerry Altman, a real-estate broker — bought him a Mac LC II."
"Several months later, in late May, Altman’s father had a heart attack, at age 67, while rowing on Creve Coeur Lake outside St. Louis. He died at the hospital soon after. At the funeral, Annie told me, Sam allotted each of the four Altman children five minutes to speak. She used hers to rank her family members in terms of emotional expressivity. She put Sam, along with her mother, at the bottom."
"Altman continued racing his cars (among his favorites: the Lexus LFA, which was discontinued by 2013 and, according to HotCars, “set you back by at least $950,000”). In the early days of the pandemic, he wore his Israeli Defense Forces gas mask. He bought a ranch in Napa. (Altman is a vegetarian, but his partner, Oliver Mulherin, a computer programmer from Melbourne, “likes cows,” Altman says.) He purchased a $27 million house on San Francisco’s Russian Hill. He racked up fancy friends."
"This is not the portfolio of a man with ambitions like Zuckerberg, who appears, somewhat quaintly compared with Altman, to be content “with building a city-state to rule over,” as the tech writer and podcaster Jathan Sadowski put it. This is the portfolio of a man with ambitions like Musk’s, a man taking the “imperialist approach.” “He really sees himself as this world-bestriding Übermensch, as a superhuman in a really Nietzschean kind of way,” Sadowski said. “He will at once create the thing that destroys us and save us from it.”"
"Families replicate social dynamics. Power differentials hurt and often explode. This is true of the Altmans. Jerry Altman’s 2018 death notice describes him as: “Husband of Connie Gibstine; dear father and father-in-law of Sam Altman, Max Altman, Jack (Julia) Altman” — Julia is Jack’s wife — “and Annie Altman …”
"Annie Altman? Readers of Altman’s blog; his tweets; his manifesto, Startup Playbook; along with the hundreds of articles about him will be familiar with Jack and Max. They pop up all over the place, most notably in a dashing photo in Forbes, atop the profile that accompanied the announcement of their joint fund, Apollo. They’re also featured in Tad Friend’s 2016 Altman profile in The New Yorker and in much chummy public banter.
- @jaltma: I find it really upsetting when I see articles calling Sam a tech bro. He’s a technology brother.
- @maxaltman: He *is* technology, brother.
- @sama: love you, (tech) bros"
"Annie does not exist in Sam’s public life. She was never going to be in the club. She was never going to be an Übermensch. She’s always been someone who felt the pain of the world. At age 5, she began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word."
"Like her eldest brother, she is extremely intelligent, and like her eldest brother, she left college early — though not because her start-up was funded by Sequoia. She had completed all of her Tufts credits, and she was severely depressed. She wanted to live in a place that felt better to her. She wanted to make art. She felt her survival depended on it. She graduated after seven semesters."
"When I visited Annie on Maui this summer, she told me stories that will resonate with anyone who has been the emo-artsy person in a businessy family, or who has felt profoundly hurt by experiences family members seem not to understand. Annie — her long dark hair braided, her voice low, measured, and intense — told me about visiting Sam in San Francisco in 2018. He had some friends over. One of them asked Annie to sing a song she’d written. She found her ukulele. She began. “Midway through, Sam gets up wordlessly and walks upstairs to his room,” she told me over a smoothie in Paia, a hippie town on Maui’s North Shore. “I’m like, Do I keep playing? Is he okay? What just happened?” The next day, she told him she was upset and asked him why he left. “And he was kind of like, ‘My stomach hurt,’ or ‘I was too drunk,’ or ‘too stoned, I needed to take a moment.’ And I was like, ‘Really? That moment? You couldn’t wait another 90 seconds?’”"
"That same year, Jerry Altman died. He’d had his heart issues, along with a lot of stress, partly, Annie told me, from driving to Kansas City to nurse along his real-estate business. The Altmans’ parents had separated. Jerry kept working because he needed the money. After his death, Annie cracked. Her body fell apart. Her mental health fell apart. She’d always been the family’s pain sponge. She absorbed more than she could take now."
"Sam offered to help her with money for a while, then he stopped. In their email and text exchanges, his love — and leverage — is clear. He wants to encourage Annie to get on her feet. He wants to encourage her to get back on Zoloft, which she’d quit under the care of a psychiatrist because she hated how it made her feel."
"Among her various art projects, Annie makes a podcast called All Humans Are Human. The first Thanksgiving after their father’s death, all the brothers agreed to record an episode with her. Annie wanted to talk on air about the psychological phenomenon of projection: what we put on other people. The brothers steered the conversation into the idea of feedback — specifically, how to give feedback at work. After she posted the show online, Annie hoped her siblings, particularly Sam, would share it. He’d contributed to their brothers’ careers. Jack’s company, Lattice, had been through YC. “I was like, ‘You could just tweet the link. That would help. You don’t want to share your sister’s podcast that you came on?’” He did not. “Jack and Sam said it didn’t align with their businesses.”
"On the first anniversary of Jerry Altman’s death, Annie had the word sch’ma — “listen” in Hebrew — tattooed on her neck. She quit her job at a dispensary because she had an injured Achilles tendon that wouldn’t heal and she was in a walking boot for the third time in seven years. She asked Sam and their mother for financial help. They refused. “That was right when I got on the sugar-dating website for the first time,” Annie told me. “I was just at such a loss, in such a state of desperation, such a state of confusion and grief.” Sam had been her favorite brother. He’d read her books at bedtime. He’d taken portraits of her on the monkey bars for a high-school project. She’d felt so understood, loved, and proud. “I was like, Why? Why are these people not helping me when they could at no real cost to themselves?”"
"In May 2020, she relocated to the Big Island of Hawaii. One day, shortly after she’d moved to a farm to do a live-work trade, she got an email from Sam asking for her address. He wanted to send her a memorial diamond he’d made out of some of their father’s ashes. “Picturing him sending a diamond of my dad’s ashes to the mailbox where it’s one of those rural places where there are all these open boxes for all these farms … It was so heavy and sad and angering, but it was also so hilarious and so ridiculous. So disconnected-feeling. Just the lack of fucks given.” Their father never asked to be a diamond. Annie’s mental health was fragile. She worried about money for groceries. It was hard to interact with somebody for whom money meant everything but also so little. “Like, either you aren’t realizing or you are not caring about this whole situation here,” she said. By “whole situation,” she meant her life. “You’re willing to spend $5,000 — for each one — to make this thing that was your idea, not Dad’s, and you’re wanting to send that to me instead of sending me $300 so I can have food security. What?”"
"The two are now estranged. Sam offered to buy Annie a house. She doesn’t want to be controlled. For the past three years, she has supported herself doing sex work, “both in person and virtual,” she told me. She posts porn on OnlyFans. She posts on Instagram Stories about mutual aid, trying to connect people who have money to share with those who need financial help."
"Annie has moved more than 20 times in the past year. When she called me in mid-September, her housing was unstable yet again. She had $1,000 in her bank account."
"Since 2020, she has been having flashbacks. She knows everybody takes the bits of their life and arranges them into narratives to make sense of their world."
"As Annie tells her life story, Sam, their brothers, and her mother kept money her father left her from her."
"As Annie tells her life story, she felt special and loved when, as a child, Sam read her bedtime stories. Now those memories feel like abuse."
"The Altman family would like the world to know: “We love Annie and will continue our best efforts to support and protect her, as any family would.”"
"Annie is working on a one-woman show called the HumAnnie about how nobody really knows how to be a human. We’re all winging it."

Note: See [EW23b], [EW23c], [EW23d], and [EW23e] for some comments that Elizabeth Weil made on X (Twitter) about this article.

[AA23c] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1708193951319306299 -- posted on
9-30-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"Thank you for the love and for calling I spade a spade. I experienced every single form of abuse with him - sexual, physical, verbal, psychology, pharmacological (forced Zoloft, also later told I’d receive money only if I went back on it), and technological (shadowbanning)"

[AA23b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709629089366348100 - posted on
10-4-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"Aww you’re nervous I’m defending myself? Refusing to die with your secrets, refusing to allow you to harm more people? If only there was little sister with a bed you could uninvited crawl in, or sick 20-something sister you could withhold your dead dad’s money from, to cope."

[AA23e] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709629659242242058 -- posted on
10-4-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"This tweet endorsed to come out of my drafts by our Dad He also said it was “poor foresight” for you to believe I would off myself before ~justice is served~"

[EW23b] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709975840598130982 -- posted
10-5-2023

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"@RemmeltE This is also a story about the tech media & its entanglement with industry. Annie was not hard to find. Nobody did the basic reporting on his family — or no one wanted to risk losing access by including Annie in a piece." / X (twitter.com)

[EW23c] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709977506533806527 -- posted 10-5-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"@RemmeltE @phuckfilosophy of course — worry about losing access to pals, allies, people he funds, people he might fund, others in tech who don't want to talk with journalists who might independently report out a story and not rely on comms...." / X (twitter.com)"

[EW23d] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709978166771781730

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"@RemmeltE @phuckfilosophy i'm not a tech reporter primarily and i've been in this industry for a long time (and it's a rough industry to be in), so less career risk for me"

[EW23e] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709979130635424203

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"@RemmeltE @phuckfilosophy Or accept the version of personal lives as delivered by the source. Sam talked about his personal life with me a bit, as did Jack. Just didn't ever reference Annie."

[AA23d] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709978285424378027 -- posted on
10-5-2023

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"{I experienced} Shadowbanning across all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. Also had 6 months of hacking into almost all my accounts and wifi when I first started the podcast"
Note: Some commenters on Hacker News claim that a post regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 has been being repeatedly removed. c.f. [HN23a], [NM23]

[HN23a] https://web.archive.org/web/20231202200938/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

[PO23] A reply to Annie's post: https://x.com/percyo_/status/1709962822854336667 -- posted on 10-5-2023

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"https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/sam-altman-artificial-intelligence-openai-profile.html… I feel like you are misrepresenting things here. If the article is correct of course. "Sam offered to buy Annie a house." Isn't that a big financial help?"
Note: Annie's replies are given in [AA23g] and [AA23h].

[AA23g] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709978018364723500 -- posted on
10-5-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Note: this is Annie's reply reply to [PO23].
"There were other strings attached they made it feel like an unsafe place to actually heal from the experiences I had with him."

[AA23h] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709977862252658703 -- posted on
10-5-2023

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Note: this is Annie's reply reply to [PO23] and [AA23g].
"The offer was after a year and half no contact {with Sam}, and {I} had started speaking up online. I had already started survival sex work. The offer was for the house to be connected with a lawyer, and the last time I had a Sam-lawyer connection I didn’t get to see my Dad’s will for a year."

[AA23i] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1710039207878734139 -- posted on
10-5-2023

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"I was too sick for “normal” standing jobs. Tendon and nerve pain, and ovarian cysts. “Pathetic” to you seems to mean something outside of your understanding"

[AA23n] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1710039374224933175 -- posted on
10-5-2023

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"Also PTSD from sexual traumas. I’m grateful to sex work for how much sex therapy I’ve gotten from the work"

[NM23] https://x.com/JOSourcing/status/1710390512455401888 -- posted on
10-6-2023

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".@hackernews keeps removing links to Annie Altman's revelations. Her shadow ban is real. And yours probably is too."

[AA23w] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1711139134138663101 -- posted on 10-8-2023

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Annie {addressing Sam}: "What must it be like, to be an almost-tech billionaire, terrified of the little sibling -- you've lost privileges to call me your sister -- who you repeatedly molested, and physically abused, and emotionally and verbally and then financially and then technologically - and oh also chemically with forced Zoloft - and I'm still alive, and you're still scared, 'cause you're sad. And I'm sad too - the difference is that I've processed it, and I do other things with it..instead of directly abusing people. And what must it be like to be more scared? Because you know the longer this goes on, the worse it's all gonna be when it comes out for you. And knowing my Torah portion was about forgiving my brothers - wow. I mean, you're forgiven, and also - fuck off, forever."

[AA23o] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713642615105798460 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"Thank you more than words for your time and attention researching.
All accurate in the current form, except there was no lawyer connected to the “I’ll give you rent and physical therapy money if you go back on Zoloft”"

[AA23p] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713643755910148238 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"The house offer came after a year and half of no contact.
Also after both: 1) starting sex work virtually and in person for survival, and 2) speaking out online.
The offer came connected to a lawyer, and I was told it was so I could not sell the house."

[AA23q] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713644026120053244 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"I asked for money and resources to be given to our Dad numerous times before he died."

[AA23r] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713644849436807597 -- posted on 10-15-2023

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"Because my parents were still legally married, though separated, my mother was able to block my Dad’s wish and signature to make me the primary beneficiary of his 401k. I had quit the job I was working because of my Achilles and PCOS, while mid-paperwork to receive this money."

[AA23u] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713647632554553444 -- posted on 10-15-2023

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"I had only fuzzy memories of sexual abuse until I went no contact, because of the emotional and financial and other abuses. I was unpacking my own sexual health, both by myself and in therapy, since 2012. Attempting to understand experiences like mid-sex projectile vomiting."

[AA23v] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713648185099571687 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"I also lost my period for 13 months from 2018-2019, after stopping Zoloft and hormonal birth control, and from various old disordered eating habits."

[AA23s] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713646231816392961 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"I was given some rent money for a few months in LA before moving back to Big Island for a work trade.
We made a plan with the family therapist (we did two sessions with) for Sam and my mother to help with my basic needs while I was sick. That plan was not followed."

[AA23t] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713646586230980717 -- posted on
10-15-2023

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"That financial “help” became inconsistent and/or attached to strings. It would be less than the amount agreed on with the therapist, late for me to actually pay rent so I had to keep asked repeatedly, etc"

[RE23a] 144. All Creation of Safety with Remmelt Ellen -- All Humans Are Human {podcast} -- published 11-21-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Alternate link
32:07
- Annie Altman: "I had to get my passport renewed, and then it got stolen in the mail"
32:48:
- Annie: "When I started the podcast, before I did sex work or any other things that increased shadowbanning, I had shadowbanning immediately, and I had podcast ratings get deleted when it {the podcast} was called 'True Shit' right when I started it. And I could not get through to a real person."
- Remmelt: "And you don't even know why. You can suspect why, but..."
- Annie: "Oh yeah. I have all of my theories, and I have emails. I got some emails back and forth with Apple Podcasts about it. There wasn't a phone number, ther wasn't any way I could have the real accountability of, 'Hey, I have this teeny podcast, it's only a few motnhs old, and I'm having a third or more of the ratings get deleted, and I don't underertand why.' And that makes it obviously challenging to grow a podcast.'"

[AA23m] “How We Do Anything Is How We Do Everything” - published
11-22-2023

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"I have experienced drama like the OpenAI drama — I grew up in it. I was repeatedly told “not to talk about it,” and to allow another person to remove my human agency.
I have lived under my sibling’s authority my whole life.
The narrative of “Annie is crazy” and “Annie doesn’t know how to take care of herself” is what I was raised and conditioned in. That narrative, along with intentionally conditional love, is what was used to control me my whole life.
When I went “no contact,” I learned even more about the control he wielded. It’s not just me, it’s his social and professional circles also. It’s terrifying how many people have told me privately they support me, but are terrified to speak publicly on my behalf.
Since going no contact from my living relatives in 2020, my literal and virtual life continue to be extremely restricted. I’ve had multiple accounts get hacked. My podcast ratings and YouTube views seemed to be removed. My presence seems difficult to find on Google. I am not sure how this is happening, and I don’t have the resources to investigate further. At one point recently a high school faculty member, from our same school, spoke with me and attempted to convince me to break no contact.
Going no contact was far from an easy decision.
I attempted every other possibility, including family therapy in early 2020. After two sessions together with my mother and brother, my therapist privately advised me that no contact was my best option, which I resisted for another four months. During this time, I was managing PCOS (several ovarian cysts) and repeat Achilles tendinopathy that severely limited my walking and normal movement abilities. I was also grieving our Dad who died in May 2018.
I quit a job because of being notified of money left to me from my Dad, and made a plan to take six months to heal my body. I notified my relatives of my health and my plan. While in the paperwork process, I was notified that the money was withheld from me until I’m in my 60s. Though separated, my parents were still legally married and so my mother had the “surviving spouse” option to ignore Dad’s wish to make me the primary beneficiary of his 401K.
Dad had a known heart condition, but still had to work full time until his death in 2018. Dad was very involved in affordable housing and reconstruction of historic buildings in St. Louis City. I had asked my sibling for years to give our Dad the financial help to stop working. Dad openly expressed his dream to retire in Costa Rica.
Jerry Altman died of a heart attack at age 67, without the dream his son could have fulfilled.
While still very physically ill and simultaneously managing intense and horrific flashbacks from PTSD, I began in person sex work in late 2020. I was unable to fully financially support myself with the virtual sex work I had already started, and with unemployment benefits from California. I applied for unemployment in 2020, at first not wanting to apply and “clog up” the process, because of my millionaire relatives I naively assumed would help me, and then was delayed in receiving benefits due to identity theft.
I was too physically ill with PCOS (several ovarian cysts) and repeat Achilles tendinopathy that severely limited my walking and normal movement abilities to work a standing job, and too mentally ill with daily flashbacks to do computer work.
I also desperately needed money for physical therapy so I could become healthier and support myself in the future. I felt like a zombie getting through every day while budgeting how much labor my body and brain could manage.
My sibling offered to buy me a home in 2021, reaching out with seemingly kind words after a year and half of no contact. We spoke on the phone three times, and through these conversations I began to suspect the offer was another attempt at control. It seemed I would never have direct ownership of the house. Also, given the nature of my PTSD flashbacks, the house felt like an unsafe place to actually heal my mind and body.
With regard to the current situation at OpenAI (and with tech in general), I feel the drama is a red herring.
The best case scenario is middle school-style interpersonal drama, with much higher money and power stakes. The worst case scenario is a distraction from something(s) that are more dangerous.
Calling employees in the middle of night to secure their public display of loyalty seems like cultish hazing.
Given my belief that “how you do anything is how you do everything”, and given the power of the technological revolution, I am concerned with where and how that power is being inequitably distributed. I am also concerned about who will benefit from that power, and in what ways.
I would love to see and support technology being used to equitably distribute basic human resources, which is far different from its current use.
My intention in sharing my story is to share my most personal and human truth, and to heal. In my own sharing, I wish to encourage others to find their truth and their healing.
I seek sovereignty for myself, and for child-me who was told to stay quiet about other people’s secrets — even when it made me physically ill.
I aim to give others the information of my story, while healing my own pains. My wish is to help others find their personal truth and healing from their pains — we’re all human.
We all advance as humans when we all tell our story.
Love,
Annie"

[BI23a] OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on an 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree — including a previously unknown Hawaii estate - Business Insider, published 11-30-2023

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"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman snapped up a $43 million estate in Hawaii in 2021, adding to his impressive real-estate portfolio."
"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman owns multimillion-dollar properties in San Francisco, Napa, and Hawaii."
"Altman, fired then reinstated as OpenAI's CEO this month, has tried to keep a relatively low profile."
"When Business Insider set out to catalog his assets, we found a previously unknown giant estate."
"Years before the recent drama at OpenAI turned CEO Sam Altman into a household name, the former Y Combinator president went on an extraordinary 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree, according to records reviewed by Business Insider — including a previously unreported $43 million Hawaii estate on land that locals describe as historically significant."
"The purchases, which also include multimillion-dollar residences in San Francisco and Napa, California, took place between early 2020 and mid-2021, when Altman was ginning up support for his eyeball-scanning crypto startup, Worldcoin, and releasing OpenAI products in private beta, BI's review of business and real-estate filings found."
"A spokesperson for Altman declined to comment."
"Earlier this year, Altman seemed to take a subtle dig at his fellow tech executives for amassing too much wealth."
""This concept of having enough money is not something that is easy to get across to other people," Altman said at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco."
"But as Altman's wealth has grown, he's become increasingly removed from the daily life of the non-ultra-ultra-rich. His mother told The Wall Street Journal in March that Altman hadn't been to a grocery store in four or five years. In 2021, he hired his cousin to manage his family office."
"In July 2021, Altman bought a 12-bedroom estate in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii, for $43 million. Judging by listing photos, the property has a private inlet and several houses. The estate is adjacent to a national landmark {Kamakahonu (here's its Wikipedia page)} a reconstruction of the royal temple of King Kamehameha I, the first ruler of the unified Hawaiian islands."
- "A second video highlighted the estate's adventurous amenities, including cliff jumping, motorboating, wakesurfing, Jet Ski-ing, and scuba diving. A person who worked on the second video said the intent was to produce something that friends and family could watch to remember their trips to the residence. (Both videos were removed from YouTube after BI requested comment for this article.)"
"Altman's purchase of the Hawaii property has not been previously reported. BI linked the property to Altman by examining business and real-estate filings showing the land was owned by an LLC managed by Jennifer Serralta, whose name appears as a manager on paperwork for other businesses known to be owned by Altman. Serralta, who previously worked in the automotive industry, describes herself on LinkedIn as the chief operating officer of a family office — presumably Altman's — and is his cousin, according to an obituary for their grandmother. Reached by phone, Serralta declined to comment."
"In a March post on her personal blog, Serralta wrote that she stayed at a Kailua-Kona property owned by "a friend" while vacationing in Hawaii. Last year, Altman tweeted a photo of himself wakesurfing in Hawaii; the view of the Big Island in the background of the photo precisely matches the view from the Kailua-Kona compound."
- The Tweet referenced:
  - [SA22a] https://x.com/sama/status/1512111914939154434 -- posted on April 7, 2022
    - "wake surfing but otherwise exactly that!"
- Here's where I think Sam is in the wake surfing picture, just from visual estimates moving around to different Google Street View Images on Google Maps (with the little orange dude you can drag-and-drop around) near Kamakahonu:
  - 3d view #1:

3d view #2:

3d view #3 (aerial/drone shot)

3d view #4:

This matches up with:
- how the background/landscape looks in Sam's wake surfing photo
- the location of Kamakahonu
- what Business Insider wrote
"Altman has one family connection to Hawaii: His youngest sibling, Annie Altman, has lived on the islands on and off since 2017. Annie Altman, an artist and entertainer who has supported herself through in-person and virtual sex work, lives a much-different life from her brother's. Annie is teetering on financial insolvency, she told BI, after a lengthy stretch of illnesses. She has not spoken with her brother since 2021, when she refused his offer to buy her a home after learning that a lawyer would control the property, she said.
She had been unaware that her oldest brother owned property in Hawaii until BI asked her about it, she said."
Sam also bought:
- a $27 million home in San Francisco, which "is the home base for a number of Altman's investment vehicles, according to business and Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the venture firm Apollo Projects, 9Point Ventures, and Uncommon Ventures. In recent weeks, the property functioned as a war room for Altman and his closest allies as he planned his return to OpenAI."
  - The home includes a wellness center, "cantilevered infinity pool", and an underground garage with a "car turntable"
- a $15.7 million, 950-acre ranch in Napa, with five homes and vineyards
- "Several Altman companies are or have been registered to the address, including the opaquely named Project 2024 LLC, as well as another Altman venture firm, Hydrazine Capital."
- a "big patch of land" in Big Sur

[TN23a] Sam Altman Speaks Out About What Happened at OpenAI - on What Now? with Trevor Noah - first posted to Spotify on December 7, 2023

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Starting at 5:02:
- Trevor Noah: "{You're} a CEO who many people have termed, like, the 'Steve Jobs of this generation, and the future.' And - you don't say that about youself."
- Sam Altman: "Certainly not."
- Trevor Noah: "No, I think a lot of people say that about you, you know, because -- I mean, I was thinking about this, and I was going, 'I think calling you the Steve Jobs of this generation is unfair.' In my opinion, I think you're the Prometheus of this generation."
  - Note: my old username (on X (formerly Twitter) and LessWrong) was "prometheus5015." This LessWrong post was first published on October 7, 2023, two months before this podcast with Trevor Noah was published on Spotify.
- Sam Altman {*turning away*}: "Wooouughh."
  - Note: it's hard to transcribe Sam's response purely in words. Go watch the podcast clip and you'll see what I'm talking about.
- Trevor Noah: "No, you really are. You really are. It seems like to me, you have stolen fire from the gods --"
- Sam Altman: {*laughs/half-chuckles*}
  - Note: once again, it is a bit hard to describe Sam's reaction solely by using words in the English language (or, at least, I am not a good enough writer to do so.) E.g. see this English StackExchange post for an idea of the difficulty.
- Trevor Noah: "--and you are the forefront of this movement, and this time, that we are now living through. Where once AI was only the stuff of sci-fi and legend. You know, you are now the face - at the forefront - of what could change civilization forever."

As I mentioned -- it's a bit hard to capture, using words alone (in my transcript above), the reaction that Sam had, when Trevor Noah described him as the "Prometheus of this generation", Just watch ~5:02 -- 5:50 in the video below.

The reason I focus on this is because it increases my probability (which is already quite high) that Sam Altman is aware of & has read this post. My old username on X (formerly Twitter) and LessWrong, at the time that this podcast with Trevor Noah was first published (on December 7, 2023, on Spotify), was "prometheus5015."

Starting at 32:28:
- Sam: "AGI and my family are the two main things I care about, so losing one of those is like...so yeah I mean it was just like unbelievably painful. The only comparable set of life experience that I had, and that one was of course much worse, was when my dad died. And that was like a very sudden thing. But the sense of like confusion and loss...in that case, I felt like I had a little bit of time to just like feel it all. But then there was so much to do. Like it was like so unexpected that I had to pick up the pieces of his life for a little while. And it wasn't until, like, a week after that I really got a moment to just, like, catch my breath and be like, holy shit, like, I can't believe this happened. So yeah, that was much worse."

[WSJ23b] Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends -- by Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal -- published 12-24-2023

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"Altman’s firing and swift reversal of fortune followed a pattern in his career, which began when he dropped out of Stanford University in 2005 and gained the reputation as a Silicon Valley visionary. Over the past two decades, Altman has lost the confidence of several top leaders in the three organizations he has directed. At every crisis point, Altman, 38 years old, not only rebounded but climbed to more powerful roles with the help of an expanding network of powerful allies."
"A group of senior employees at Altman’s first startup, Loopt—a location-based social-media network started in the flip-phone era—twice urged board members to fire him as CEO over what they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior, said people familiar with the matter. But the board, with support from investors at venture-capital firm Sequoia, kept Altman until Loopt was sold in 2012."
"In 2019, Altman was asked to resign from Y Combinator after partners alleged he had put personal projects, including OpenAI, ahead of his duties as president, said people familiar with the matter."
"This fall, Altman also faced a crisis of trust at OpenAI, the company he navigated to the front of the artificial-intelligence field. In early October {2023}, OpenAI’s chief scientist {Ilya Sutskever} approached some fellow board members to recommend Altman be fired, citing roughly 20 examples of when he believed Altman misled OpenAI executives over the years. That set off weeks of closed-door talks, ending with Altman’s surprise ouster days before Thanksgiving."
"This article is based on interviews with dozens of executives, engineers, current and former employees and friends of Altman’s, as well as investors."
"A few years after {Loopt's} launch, some Loopt executives voiced frustration with Altman’s management. There were complaints about Altman pursuing side projects, at one point diverting engineers to work on a gay dating app, which they felt came at the expense of the company’s main work."
"Senior executives approached the board with concerns that Altman at times failed to tell the truth—sometimes about matters so insignificant one person described them as paper cuts. At one point, they threatened to leave the company if he wasn’t removed as CEO, according to people familiar with the matter. The board backed Altman."
"“If he imagines something to be true, it sort of becomes true in his head,” said Mark Jacobstein, co-founder of Jimini Health who served as Loopt’s chief operating officer. “That is an extraordinary trait for entrepreneurs who want to do super ambitious things. It may or may not lead one to stretch, and that can make people uncomfortable.”"
"Altman doesn’t recall employee complaints beyond the normal annual CEO review process, according to people familiar with his thinking."
"Michael Moritz, who led Sequoia, personally advised Altman. When Loopt struggled to find buyers, Moritz helped engineer an acquisition by another Sequoia-backed company, the financial technology firm Green Dot."
"Altman turned Y Combinator into an investing powerhouse. While serving as the president, he kept his own venture-capital firm, Hydrazine, which he launched in 2012. He caused tensions after barring other partners at Y Combinator from running their own funds, including the current chief executive, Garry Tan, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Tan and Ohanian didn’t respond to requests for comment."
"Altman also expanded Y Combinator through a nonprofit he created called YC Research, which served as an incubator for Altman’s own projects, including OpenAI. From its founding in 2015, YC Research operated without the involvement of the firm’s longtime partners, fueling their concern that Altman was straying too far from running the firm’s core business."
"By early 2018, Altman was barely present at Y Combinator’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., spending more time at OpenAI, at the time a small research nonprofit, according to people familiar with the matter."
"The increasing amount of time Altman spent at OpenAI riled longtime partners at Y Combinator, who began losing faith in him as a leader. The firm’s leaders asked him to resign, and he left as president in March 2019."
"Graham said it was his wife’s doing. “If anyone ‘fired’ Sam, it was Jessica, not me,” he said. “But it would be wrong to use the word ‘fired’ because he agreed immediately.”
"Jessica Livingston said her husband was correct."
"To smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm’s website announcing the change. But the firm’s partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the post."
"For years, even some of Altman’s closest associates—including Peter Thiel, Altman’s first backer for Hydrazine—didn’t know the circumstances behind Altman’s departure."
"As the company grew, management complaints about Altman surfaced."
"In early fall this year, Sutskever, also a board member, was upset because Altman had elevated another AI researcher, Jakub Pachocki, to director of research, according to people familiar with the matter."
"Sutskever told his board colleagues that the episode reflected a long-running pattern of Altman’s tendency to pit employees against one another or promise resources and responsibilities to two different executives at the same time, yielding conflicts, according to people familiar with the matter."
"Other board members already had concerns about Altman’s management. Tasha McCauley, an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corp., tried to cultivate relationships with employees as a board member. Past board members chatted regularly with OpenAI executives without informing Altman. Yet during the pandemic, Altman told McCauley he needed to be told if the board spoke to employees, a request that some on the board viewed as Altman limiting the board’s power, people familiar with the matter said."
"Around the time Sutskever aired his complaints, the independent board members heard similar concerns from some senior OpenAI executives, people familiar with the discussions said. Some considered leaving the company over Altman’s leadership, the people said."
"Altman also misled board members, leaving the impression with one board member that another wanted board member Helen Toner removed, even though it wasn’t true, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported."
"Altman also misled board members, leaving the impression with one board member that another wanted board member Helen Toner removed, even though it wasn’t true, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported."

[AA24a] Email about my Dad’s Trust - published 3-12-2024

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"Hello mother’s-lawyer,
Contrary to your email here, my-short-term-lawyer shared with me that my Father’s Trust has been funded before my mother’s death.
As I turned 30 this January, I am considering requesting the funds for which my Father’s Trust was established per my Father’s wishes, according to my understanding of my Father’s Will.
Before I do so, I would like to know the following information:
- How much was the Trust funded for, and when exactly?
- Please send details of all assets and all information about the Trust. My-short-term-lawyer mentioned Hydrazine, a fund of my siblings’, and one of my Dad’s buildings with my-Dad’s-old-boss?
- Please send all documentation you have concerning the Trust, including but not limited to: documents and numbers related to the institution holding the Trust, the trustees, and communication regarding how the trust was funded.
- Have there been any divisions of the Trust? Please send any information if yes.
- Please send all documents related in any way to the Trust that I may not be aware of at this point.
- Why was the funding of the Trust delayed? Why was the Trust funded now after you previously said it couldn’t be funded?
- My-short-term-lawyer (cc’d), who you spoke with about getting the Trust funded, let me know you said my next step was to “make an ask of the Trust with a monthly budget.” Will you please point to where in the Trust it specifies that stipulation?
- The Trust mentions different stipulations for different ages, and my 30th birthday was in January. Why was I not contacted about the potential to request a non-prejudicial lump sum in accordance with my Father’s wishes?
As you may also know, I quit my job in 2019 a year after my Father’s death, understanding that I was the primary beneficiary of my Father’s 401K. I planned to take my time away from work to focus on my health, which had declined severely in my mid-20s. My relatives are aware of my repeated tendinopathy, three times in a walking boot for the same ankle, and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I did not receive any such funding, and as a result, my health and well-being have continued to suffer — in direct contradiction to the stipulations in my Father’s Will. The Trust makes it clear that my Dad’s wish was for me to have been supported in these six years since his death. In the absence of the support intended for me in my Dad’s Trust, I’ve experienced two and a half years of houseless and homelessness and daily PTSD flashbacks, and I’ve had to resort to survival sex work to support myself financially while still navigating physical illnesses.
Please send your confirmation of receipt of this email within 24 hours, and all requested documentation and answers, within 10 business days.
Thank you,
Annie"

[AA24b] How I Started Escorting - published 3-27-2024

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"Promise you it’s not something I ever thought I’d start.
In 2019, while living in LA, I got diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS is a diagnosis of elimination, and/or “oh hey this ultrasound shows a cyst on your ovary.” Around the same time, I went into a walking boot for my Achilles for the third time in eight years. The first time was Achilles tendinopathy and a bone spur, the second time was plain old Achilles tendinopathy, and this third time was now both Achilles and posterior tibial tendinopathy.
I got my fourth or fifth tonsillitis in there too, to round things out, or something.
I had quit a job at a dispensary in the summer of 2019, while in the paperwork process about being the primary beneficiary of my Father’s 401K. My Dad died in May 2018, and access to his Will was withheld from me by my mother and three older siblings for an entire year. The 401K situation, a year after his death, motivated me to finally demand access to my Dad’s Will and other information.
When notified by the company about my Dad’s 401K, while sitting at a reception desk because I could no longer do the standing shifts, I was both relieved for the help and shocked that information about my Dad would be hidden from me. Especially shocked because my relatives knew about my various physical illnesses and need for financial support.
All three of my siblings and my mother, all wealthy, had seen the Will the entire time. I told them all about my health challenges, about the money I was receiving from Dad, and about my six month plan to work on my podcast and music and one human show, seated creative projects that would help me as I healed my tendons and hormones and digestion and grief.
I naively trusted these relatives. I figured the worst case scenario was not being able to monetize my art projects. I accepted this potential worst case because working on my projects would still help me rest my ankle, by giving me a creative outlet other than dancing and yoga, which my health impacted my abilities to continue. I had first gone to the Big Island of Hawai’i in 2017 for yoga teacher training, and then moved back there and taught yoga. (Seems like a place to note that I paid for training, and if I had gone to medical school like was tracked for me it would have been paid for by my relatives.) My relatives knew how important yoga and dance were and are to me, and mocked my interest aside from one singular time two of them took a yoga class taught by me.
I was very wrong about the potential worst case. Said 401K money from my Dad withheld from me by millionaire relatives, who knew I was sick. I went back to an old job I worked in the Bay Area, and was selling produce boxes with Farm Fresh to You. I was wearing the walking boot I attempted to avoid my third time needing. I was sweating through my sheets almost nightly, and was doing bloodwork and other exams to search for potential thyroid or other PCOS-related conditions. I began selling furniture and clothes, and the microphones I had been using for podcasts and music, so I could afford rent and food.
In December 2019, after being told “no” for the financial support I asked for the first time ever, I went on SeekingArrangements. Living in LA, I had no idea what I was getting into with that site, which is for sugar dating and escorting. I didn’t meet up with anyone in person in LA, though I did have a couple video chats. I remember the first time a man sent me a Zelle for a video call where I flashed him my boobs — a Zelle that got my account out of the negative. I also remember a man yelling at me through the phone about saying no to coming over for $300 because “WELL HAVEN’T YOU DONE IT FOR FREE A BUNCH!” I was horrified, and felt like the sex work industry was probably “too much” for me. Being scared of what felt like “plan Z” was scary in itself.
In the beginning of 2020 I did two family therapy sessions. I sat in my therapist’s office, in my walking boot and hormonal sweat, with my oldest sibling there in person holding his phone with our mother on FaceTime. The woman who bore me told the therapist that it would be “best for Annie’s mental health if she fully financially supported herself,” and my multi-millionaire sibling agreed.
The therapist was utterly shocked, I was only half-surprised.
Perhaps with her highlighting that I never asked them for financial help until very ill, and it still being so early in grieving our Dad, and with her highlighting their enormous wealth, the therapist somehow persuaded them to give short-term help for my basic needs.
Again I was wrong about a potential worst case scenario. My mom and my brother didn’t honor the therapist’s plan for six months of financial support, and my rent money was late or less-than-agreed or had-to-be-groveled-for. So in May 2020 I moved back to the Big Island of Hawai’i, where I had lived before living in LA. This was my plan Y — find a low-labor work trade.
I found a farm with a potential for a work trade, and despite being only a couple months out of the walking boot felt it was overall more healing than staying in a studio apartment I may or may not have enough rent money for, across from a park that was taped off due to Covid restrictions. When I notified one of my siblings of finding a farm work trade, he notified the rest of the relatives who group messaged me they would not be providing any of the final month of support agreed on with the therapist.
I had planned to use the rent money for food.
While work-trading on a rural farm, my oldest sibling messaged me asking where to send my diamond made from our Father’s ashes. My Father never asked to become a diamond. I never sent my sibling the farm address. The mailbox was open, in a cluster of mailboxes in the middle of nowhere on the island. Plus, the most financially reasonable thing for me to have done with a diamond at that point was to pawn it for food money — and my sibling was aware.
I decided to go full no contact with my relatives. The family therapist we spoke with recommended I consider this more seriously, after telling me she could not professionally recommend doing more group sessions. She was not the first therapist to tell me to go no contact. Withholding the final month of a six month plan for basic life support, while I was very sick, while withholding money left to me from my Dad, while offering a diamond Dad didn’t ask to become to be sent to a rural mailbox, was my final straw to begin grieving all three of my siblings and my mother. A completely different and similar grieving process as grieving my Dad.
The distinctions between “family” and “relatives” became more clear everyday.
After a couple months, I had to stop work trading on the farm because of my ankle again. Even small plantings and weeding was too much. One of the owners of the farm kindly and graciously found computer work for him for me to do seated, which gave me more time while I scrambled with my legs up the wall in constant ankle and knee pain. I had both an Etsy Shop and Patreon for my podcast, though they didn’t make enough to even cover my phone bill.
Still unsure how to rest and heal my body, I found a room rental in town and started OnlyFans. I applied for EBT food stamps and Medicaid, which felt so surreal while sharing DNA with millionaires. I had also applied for unemployment in California in April 2020, as at first I didn’t want to clog up the system for people who weren’t directly related to millionaires who could help them. I was one of the millions who had identity theft on their unemployment, and so had to go through paperwork and hearings for it to finally come through in November 2020.
So back to September 2020, starting OnlyFans. I started very softcore, for all sorts of reasons. I was uncomfortable showing much of my body, both because of a history of eating disorders and body dysmorphia and because my body was physically hurting in so many ways. I enjoyed parts of posting, and being front-facing about it all. Sharing pictures and videos on my own terms felt healing for years of insecurities with my body and sexuality and preferences, like exposure therapy for all my conditioning to hide. It felt like a very specific art therapy project. I was confused about liking parts of something that was a plan Z last resort.
I was still too sick to teach yoga. I had considered and attempted various mindless computer jobs, and found myself completely incapable. After going no contact because of financial and emotional abuse, I was flooded with memories of sexual abuse I had repressed.
I had flashbacks of the sexual and physical abuses my whole life, though it wasn’t until the silence of no contact that I had the space to connect the dots. In college and after, I had projectile vomited multiple times during sex with men I loved and trusted. I remember talking about this and related things with therapists, unable to wrap my mind around how violently my body had responded.
Now, literally on my ass from tendon and nerve and hormonal and digestive and ovarian cyst pain, I had a lot of time to remember the flashbacks’ details.
While deep in my own tendon and hormone and trauma healing, I turned to escorting. Most of my emotional and thought space was on various sexual healings of my own, so extending it to include others felt less intimidating. My days were hazes of PTSD flashbacks with whatever grounding exercises I could do, whatever floor yoga and stretching I could do, and physical therapy. I had to budget basic things like grocery trips based on how much I could walk or carry. I couldn’t carry heavy things or go on long walks, and could manage even shorter beach walks because of the uneven surface. I was constantly stressing about my health and money, and feeling hopeless and powerless. Being sick is very expensive, and also a very challenging state to be in attempting to make money.
My ankle and knee and hips would hurt extra some days, and it wasn’t for another year when I was referred to a pelvic floor physical therapist that I knew I was also managing nerve pain.
I decided to get on SeekingArrangements again, now living on Maui. My disabilities and desperation made me more open to navigate the website, and I figured it would be very different than in LA. It was different, though I was still resistant to actually meet anyone in person.
I had two adulthood sexual assaults while living on Maui that triggered more flashbacks. I’m grateful for those assaults in a fucked up way, for the clarities they gifted me. Half awake feeling unequivocally, “I’ve experienced exactly this before.” Though I was more set back emotionally and financially, managing even more flashbacks of old memories flooding in and incapacitating me. So I took the plunge to meet someone in person.
The first client I ever had was in an open relationship, where his partner gave him permission for “paid play partners” that she approved of. We met on video chat, then I met him for coffee, then a few days later he was at my place. We talked, we fucked, he sent me a Venmo, he left.
I logged on my computer and paid a bill I was behind on, immediately.
My last escorting experience was with a man who was experimenting with his queerness, and wanted me to bring another man in. I invited a filming partner, as I had started making hardcore porn on OnlyFans and PornHub at that point. Before the filming partner came over, the client said “I’m so gay!” — while his dick was in my mouth between words of the dick about to be in his mouth — followed by “omg I’ve never said that before” and a distant stare. I felt that stare, back to a stare I’d experienced decades ago.
In the shower after I prayed that would be my last experience in person, and I could switch to all virtual. I knew an article would be coming out soon quoting me in New York Magazine, and I prayed it would give me the exposure to support myself with OnlyFans.
Then maybe I could give energy to my podcast and writing and singing and teaching yoga again, too.
Who knows how much financial freedom I could have had from online work outside of the sex industry without the various technological blocks I’ve experienced.
I had podcast ratings get deleted, and my personal home wifi repeatedly hacked, and more, before I ever started sex work. I learned even more about shadow-banning and more since starting sex work, as that community is the most targeted demographic. I also learned that sex work triggers tech companies because it is so powerful — sex work proliferates the internet and all technology, and perhaps all companies at their base. “The oldest profession.”
I survived sickness because of survival sex work.
Escorting: I’m not at all glad that it happened; I am grateful."

[AA24m] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1777757262737703369 - posted on
4-9-2024

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"One time I found a $500k watch at my oldest siblings’ place, casually in an open kitchen cabinet. Another sibling told me how much the watch was, and then got bullied for disclosing to me. I asked why our 60-something Dad (with heart conditions) was making rent and car payments."
"Surely retiring the father you claimed closeness with was more valuable than a watch????????"
"If our Dad had his needs taken care of, I would have supported multiple fancy watches"

[AA24c] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787162346047304103 -- posted on
5-5-2024

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"#rememberjerryaltman ❤️"
"Jerry Altman died in 2018 of a heart attack, at the age of 67. He was working overtime, with known heart conditions.
The dream he expressed to retire in Costa Rica was never fulfilled by his millionaire son, who could have retired our father that he claimed to love."

[AA24d] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787163136900075886 -- posted on
5-5-2024

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"What would have been our last family trip, I chose not to go for various reasons. I asked our Dad to be given a check for whatever would have been spent on my fancy plane ticket and accommodations. Dad didn’t ever tell me about getting money from Sam, and got quiet about his Costa Rica dream"

[AA24k] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1792624658841501977 -- posted on
5-20-2024

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"*one year after full no contact, year and half after the two sessions with the LMFT"
- Note: I believe LMFT stands for Licensed Marriage Family Therapist, a therapist that "offer{s} expert guidance to individuals, couples, and families experiencing complex relationship-based issues" (source)

[BB24a] OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-6-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Note: in the link I provided, there's a transcript. The transcript has this feature where it highlights the current word being spoken, with the idea being that you can "follow along" reading the transcript while you're listening to the podcast. Unfortunately, the feature is broken. I think this is due to the inclusion of some ads/commercials at various points throughout the podcast, which create a mismatch between the transcript and the audio.) Specifically, the word highlighted in the transcript is usually a few minutes later than the actual audio.
- Example from OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive:

Ellen Huet: "For this season, you'll hear reporting done by me and my colleagues at Bloomberg who have been covering AI during the boom of the last few years. We interviewed some of the leading minds in AI to try to cut through the hype and understand the debate about whether AI will be a tool to improve human existence or to extinguish it. But this is also the story of Sam, the man at the center of it all, and we spoke with Sam's friends, family, and collaborators to demystify him and how he rose to power. This first episode is all about how Sam got here. He's a man who has always understood the importance of being in the right room at the right time, with exactly the right few people. The full story of Sam's rise is important because understanding who he is and what he believes will shed light on an urgent question should we trust this man to oversee this technology? In the summer of twenty twenty three, about five months before he was fired, my colleague Emily Chang asked him this exact question at a Bloomberg conference..."
- Note: I've tried to fix any typos in the transcript, but there may still be some I've missed.
...
Ellen Huet: "To get a better sense of the kind of person Sam is and how he got where he is now. I want to take you back to his adolescence. Sam had a privileged upbringing in Saint Louis. He's the oldest of four siblings. His mom was a dermatologist and his dad was a real estate developer. He attended a private high school called John Burrows. There's an anecdote about him from that period that sticks out. When some students wanted to boycott an assembly about sexuality, Sam stood up in front of the whole school and announced he was gay. It's a pretty gutsy move for a teenager in the early two thousands, and unsurprisingly, Sam was smart.
Andy Abbot: "And generally Sam he was. He was an exceptional student, He was an exceptional writer, he was an exceptional big personality."
Ellen Huet: "That's Andy Abbott. He was one of Sam's English teachers, and he's now the head of school. And this is a pretty nerdy school where it's cool to get good grades and be a high achiever. And even in that environment, Sam stood out."
Andy Abbot: "Sam's just a really natural leader, incredibly charismatic, curious guy. He's atypical you know. He was the editor of the yearbook and he represented the school in the Model United Nations. He designed our website, you know, before we hired people to do our website. He could just do that stuff.
Ellen Huet: "Sam even played water polo."
Andy Abbot: "He was pretty good {laughs.} I'm not a connoisseur, but I'm like, he was pretty good."
Ellen Huet: "He remembers Sam as being really confident, and apparently for good reason. Sounds like Sam was just this exceptional kid."
Andy Abbot: "Well, he's the smartest guy in the room, and he's charismatic. I remember thinking, and I'm just this is just an embarrassing confession. I hope he doesn't go into technology. He's so creative and he's so, he's such a good writer, and I hoped he would be an author or something like that. And I mean, nobody could have anticipated the magnitude of open Ai, but everybody knew that this guy's better at most things than most of us are."
Ellen Huet: "This speaks to a pattern that'll become a crucial factor in Sam's career. He's very good at impressing people, especially the right people, older people, people with influence, people who are at a position to help him. Someone who knows Sam says his superpower is figuring out who's in charge and charming them."
Ellen Huet: "So we have young Sam. Even though he was a teenager, he acted like someone older with more agency and confidence. Adults found this quality of his admirable, and he acted like this toward his three younger siblings too. In a big New Yorker profile on Sam, his younger brother said that as kids, they used to play a board game called Samurai, and Sam always won because he declared himself the leader and said, I have to win and I'm in charge of everything. When Sam's brother told this story, it was a jocular exchange. But Annie, their youngest sibling and only sister, sees it differently. These days, she's estranged from Sam and the rest of her immediate family, but when she was a kid, she remembered that same quality of Sam's wanting to be in charge, and to her it wasn't funny, it was domineering."
Annie Altman: "From my perspective, with the 9 year age difference, he very much wanted to be, and acted like, the third parent, and like being the older sibling in charge, in control."
Ellen Huet: "For instance, even though the family was Jewish, they used to get a Christmas tree until Sam put his foot down."
Annie Altman: "I don't have memories of Christmas tree because when Sam got bar mitzvah'd at 13, he decided that we as a family unit were Jews and needed to no longer celebrate Christmas. There were no more Christmas trees."
Ellen Huet: "When their dad passed away in 2018, Annie remembers that Sam dictated to each of his younger siblings how many minutes they could talk at the funeral.
Annie Altman: "To be at your dad's funeral, to be like, oh, I'm the oldest sibling, so I get to choose how long all the sibling -- which, it is bizarre, and there's a level of it that's so hilarious and so benign, surface-level, classic older sibling bullshit where it's like, 'all right, older sibling wanting to make up the rules to the game.'" Like there's a level of it that's very light and funny -- and there's also a level of it that's very dark and deeply unsettling, of how does that behavior come up in other places if you believe that you get to be the authority on something that you are not the authority on."
Ellen Huet: "A spokeswoman for OpenAI told us that Sam recalls these incidents differently, but she declined to elaborate."
...
Ellen Huet: "Sam started building the startup {Loopt} in 2005. The iPhone didn't exist yet, so Looped was trying to do this for flip phones and it was kind of hard to get traction. At one point early on, Sam's company was in a desperate situation. They really needed to get a deal with a mobile carrier. They learned that Boost Mobile, which was part of Sprint, was looking to add a location feature and needed a partner, but they were about to sign with someone else, so Sam flew down to Boost's headquarters in Irvine in southern California. When he tells the story, he says that he just showed up, waited outside the right executive's office, and asked for just ten minutes. Here's how that executive remembers it."
Lowell Winer: "It's ever recall I got a phone call from Sam and he was in Irvine, and he said that he explained who he was and what Looped was somebody at Sprint had told him to get in touch with us."
Ellen Huet: "That's Lowell Winer. He was at the time the head of business development for Boost. And he's going to tell a story that has a few asides, but that I think captures a lot about what Sam was like."
Lowell Winer: "Early on, we were a day or two away from signing a contract with another startup that was further along than Looped. He asked to come by that day, you know, which is incredibly unusual, but given the timing that, you know, we were at the eleventh hour we were at to sign this contract. He had come, you know, referred to us by our parent company, it was worth at least a meeting. So Sam shows up at the office with one of one or two other guys from Loopt. We go sit in the conference room, you know, we share what we were looking to do. Sam started to share about Loopt. He was I think nineteen at the time, you know, I think maybe in cargo short sitting cross legged in a in a chair in the conference room and just kind of holding court."
Ellen Huet: "I want to pause here for a second on this cargo shorts detail. For a lot of Sam's young life, he was a cargo shorts. Devotee wore them all the time. People kind of poked fun at him for it, to the point where he felt the need to address it on a podcast called Masters of Scale."
Sam Altman: "Honestly, I don't think they're that ugly, and I find them incredibly convenient. Like I I, you can like put a lot of stuff like I like to. I'd still read paperback books. I like paperback books. I like to carry on around with me. I have like an iPhone seven plus, which is kind of like works really well in cargo pockets. I carry like computer chargers, cables. They're just like, you know, efficient. Why people care about that so much that I can't tell you."
Ellen Huet: "That last comment? That's very Sam to remark that the things normal people might talk about don't make sense or aren't rational. It's like he has no patience for the things most of us might think are funny. He has more important things to think about anyway. Here he is a nineteen year old in a meeting with mobile network executives wearing cargo shorts, sitting cross legged in a conference room chair. Even though this encounter was almost twenty years ago, Lowell remembers vividly what Sam looked like in that moment, because it was such an odd picture.

[BB24b] OpenAI Part 2: Ilya Dreams of AGI -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-6-2024

[BB24c] OpenAI Part 3: Heaven and Hell, Part 1 -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-13-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Ellen Huet (host of the podcast): "Today, we're going to start on a drive in Hawaii."
Annie Altman: "We're on north Shore, going deeper into the jungle on the north shore, so we're passing twin falls right now.
Ellen Huet: "I'm driving through the lush green forests of Maui. Annie Altman, Sam Altman's little sister is sitting in the passenger seat. You heard from her briefly in the first episode."
...
Ellen Huet: "We're taking a tour of the different places Annie has moved around in the last couple of years, driving down dirt roads to look at cabins and houses hidden behind enormous tropical plants."
..,
Ellen Huet: "For much of the past two years, Annie hasn't been able to afford a stable place to live."
Annie Altman: "The place you just passed is one of the places I stayed at longer-term in all of the houselessness...{I spent} two months on a newly-built, {with} no running water or no electricity, house, at the far end, back, of the property."
Ellen Huet: "And I think she's an important part of Sam's story."
Annie Altman: "And at the time I had nowhere to stay and no rent money, certainly no deposit money, and barely enough room, barely enough money for rent."
Ellen Huet: "Recently, over the course of just a year, she moved twenty two times, and that's on average about twice a month. Sometimes she has stayed places for a week at a time, or even just a night or two. Some of them have been illegal rentals without running water. She says she's slept on floors and friends' houses. She stayed with strangers when she didn't have another option."
...
Annie Altman: "The man who lived in the front house messaged me on Instagram, and I stayed in his kids' room the week that they weren't there, and then slept on the floor in the common room the week that the kids were there.
Annie Altman: "I was houseless. I didn't have somewhere to go."
Annie Altman: "I stayed in this cabin with the slanty roof right there for three months."
{A podcast host}: "How many different places have you lived in that didn't have running water?"
Annie: "Maybe five-ish? Five or six? I don't know."
Ellen Huet: "Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in San Francisco, her brother Sam was having a spectacular year in 2023. The success of ChatGPT had launched OpenAI into the stratosphere. Sam was named CEO of the Year by Time magazine. He spent months flying around the globe talking to world leaders about AI."
...
Ellen Huet: "On stage, on podcasts and interviews, people kept turning to Sam for answers. They were asking him what our AI future would hold. In May of that year, he confidently suggested a future where no one is poor. It's an idea he's talked about for years, and the remarks show that his tune hasn't changed despite growing renown and wealth.
Sam Altman: "One thing I think we all could agree on is that we just shouldn't have poverty in the world."
...
Ellen Huet: "It sounds wonderful, almost utopian. But Sam was saying on stage that everyone should have enough money, enough food, everyone should have a place to live, while his own sister was struggling with homelessness. I want to believe Sam's promises about abundance, but Annie's story complicates a lot of the things Sam has projected about the future."
...
Ellen Huet: "Sam is a savvy guy. As his profile has gotten bigger after he helped build the world's leading AI company, he has stopped saying things like AI will kill us all. Instead, he talks about how society will be profoundly changed, but overall it will be for the better. Since his newfound chat GPT fame, he has shifted toward presenting himself and by extension, open AI, as more middle of the road. Sam is allowed to change his views, but people have also so complain to me in private that Sam has a tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth. He's good at telling people what they want to hear in that moment, so it's not surprising that if it's advantageous for him to seem more moderate, that he would start to sound that way."

[BB24d] OpenAI Part 4: Heaven and Hell, Part 2 -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-20-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Ellen Huet: "What really strikes me is that Sam positions himself as the visionary behind this AI that might put us all out of work, and the visionary behind systems that will save us from that chaos. He's offering fixes to the problems that his own technology will create. Imagine a future where Sam Altman's company has invented AI so powerful that it upends the entire labor economy. We no longer work for money. Instead, we get monthly checks from Sam Altman's income distribution system. I can imagine that his intentions might be good, and that he wants to make a difference here. But what Sam's proposing is ending poverty through systems overseen by him, basically, and that's asking us to put a huge amount of trust in him. Remember, Sam is really good at gaining power. He has a deep drive to be in charge. His company has made promises about adhering to certain principles and then moved away from them. It brings me back to this question we asked in episode one, what I think is the key question of this series. Should we trust this person?"
Ellen Huet: "Like we said earlier, there's a part of Sam's life that really complicates this image of him. It's the story of his little sister Annie. She says she lives in poverty. Sometimes she struggles with homelessness. She says she survives by doing sex work. Sam is pitching this dream future in which universal basic income will protect everyone who needs it. That sounds lovely in theory, but when it's held up next to Annie's messy, everyday reality, that promise starts to sound a bit hollow. Housing insecurity has defined Annie's life for the past few years. This is a complex and sensitive situation, so I wanted to hear from her myself."
Annie Altman: "In my experience, it's not only hard to do anything when you are housing insecure, it is impossible. I haven't had a typical day in four years because of how much energy both physically like looking for places or doing things, or looking for jobs and emotionally goes into housing insecurity. It has been the single biggest energy output of my past year."
Ellen Huet: "In person, Annie is upbeat and smiley. She has good suggestions for health food stores on Maui. She has the word love tattooed across her knuckles. She makes a podcast, Hello and Welcome to the Annie Altman Show All Humans or Human Podcast, and posts videos of her singing on YouTube."
...
Ellen Huet: "Sometimes, I and to better understand her story, I want to rewind to her childhood. When we heard from Annie briefly in the first episode, she talked about Sam's domineering attitude within their family, how he dictated they wouldn't have Christmas trees and put himself in charge of how long each sibling could speak at their dad's funeral. Their family has three boys. Sam's the oldest, then Max, then Jack. Annie is the youngest, nine years younger than Sam and the only girl. Her brothers loved science, math, games, nerdy stuff. She was always the artistic, sensitive one. Even when they were children, she sometimes felt like the odd one out, and as they became adults, the bonds between the brothers tightened both personally and professionally. While Sam was running YC, Jack founded a software company that was funded by YC. Jack and Max also both worked with Sam, helping run his investment fund with money from Peter Teel. Then all three started another investment fund together in which they used Sam's personal wealth. The three brothers lived together in San Francisco, brothers, coworkers, roommates, a tight, messy knot of family, business and money. Annie, on the other hand, was not part of the Altman family brand. With each new step in her life, she seemed to veer farther away from the path she felt was expected of her. She completed pre med requirements, but decided not to pursue that further. She did improv classes, stand up comedy, yoga, teacher training. She said her dad was supportive of this turn away from a more traditional path. Her mom, who was a physician, was less excited."
Annie Altman: "My siblings and mother were very judgmental about the shift and also very "This is just a phase." I was an am at total daddy's girl. With my mother, there was closeness only when I was doing what she wanted me to do, which is a story {that} sadly, I feel like a lot of people can relate to."
Ellen Huet: "Just a note. We reached out to Sam, his siblings, and his mom for comment in this episode. His mom, Connie Gibstine, responded with this statement:"
Connie Gibstine: "We love Annie and are very concerned about her well being. Over the years, we have offered her financial support and help and continue to offer it today. Navigating the balance between providing support without enabling self-destructive behavior for a family member with mental health struggles is extraordinarily difficult. We only want the best for Annie and hope everyone will treat her with compassion."
Ellen Huet: "In 2018, Annie's father died suddenly of a heart attack, and the grief hit her {Annie} hard. Meanwhile, she also started dealing with some chronic health issues, including tendonitis in her ankle that made it difficult to do work that required standing. She quit her job. She was still mourning her dad. She had gotten some life insurance money after he died, but when that ran out a year later, she still found herself in a desperate financial situation. In order to pay rent, she started selling her furniture. She says she asked her family directly for money to pay rent and cover groceries."
Annie Altman: "I asked my mother for help and she said no, And then {I} asked Sam and he was told to say no because of her {Connie} wanting him to say no, and he's a grown man in his thirties, {worth} millions of dollars."
Ellen Huet: "Now, Sam and his family have given Annie money at times, but she says it always came with heavy conditions that made her nervous. At one point, Sam wanted her to get back on Zoloft, an antidepressant, which she had started as a teen but had stopped later on. She {Annie} forwarded me an email from Sam where he asked her to share her bank statements and to allow him and his mom to sit in on some of her therapy sessions in exchange for her rent and medical expenses being covered. She felt like it was his way of exerting leverage or power over her. Of course, Sam can spend his money as he pleases, but again, he's on stage espousing the virtues of universal basic income -- giving money away for free, unconditionally, -- and Annie says he didn't do the same here for her. There were times when I'd gone back and forth about what to include from Annie's story. It's a very personal, messy family situation, and I'll confess that on occasion I've doubted some unrelated things she's told me. But also, I've looked through corroborating emails and documents. We drove to a lot of places Annie lived, and I met people she lived with. So in late 2019, when she asked for help and says she was told no, she turned to something she considered a last resort. To make money, she started sex work. She made an account on a sugar daddy dating website where people trade money for companionship and often sex."
Annie: "I was just...I was in a desperate place. I mean...people who have been in a position like this ever know that when you're in a place of selling furniture, you're in a desperate position of "I'm out options." This is a 'plan Z' I would not be doing this if plans 'A' through 'I' had worked out in any capacity."
Ellen Huet: "The first thing she tried was video chatting with a middle-aged man. She flashed him on camera and he sent her money over Zelle. She posted videos on OnlyFans and PornHub. She also did in-person sex work for two years. She says she didn't want to, but it was the work that she was able to fit into her unpredictable schedule of dealing with her health issues. Her lack of stable income, led to a long period of housing insecurity. At times, she lived with sex work clients, or even with strangers from the internet. Her sex work contributed to her precarious housing. She didn't have pay stubs or regular income, which limited the kind of leases she could get. It felt like this interconnected web, exactly the kind of vicious cycle that something like universal basic income tries to break."
Annie Altman: "If I had a security deposit in my bank account - {I} never would have lived with this man, not, not even a little bit of a chance, would I have lived with this man. There's some unhealthy sex work experiences, and I've also had very traumatizing experiences from in-person work that would not have happened if I had secure housing. I'm still in and, have been so long in, survival mode that it really shifts everything. It really shifts everything. Times when it's been really like...places...like staying just for a week and a half {somewhere} and then the floor for a week, and then someone's place for a night, and then a floor for a week - in those places of really moving that much in a short period of time, there's no - I had no energy for anything else. Really feeling a sense of helplessness and powerlessness that I have never experienced, ever."
Ellen Huet: "It's not a clean cut situation. In twenty twenty two, Sam offered to buy Annie a house, but she says it wasn't going to be in her name, and the conditions made her uncomfortable."
Annie Altman: "It became clear to me that it was not an offer for my house. It was an offer for a house of Sam's - or a lawyer of his - that I would be allowed to live in."
Ellen Huet: "She felt like it was a throwback to Sam's attempts to get her on Zoloft and to peer into her bank statements, so she said no. I do want to pause on this because I know it may sound illogical. After all, it would have been a place to live. But from her point of view, Sam had exerted control over her throughout their lives, and this seemed like one more attempt to control her. During those conversations, she was clear with Sam about the hardships she had endured in the past couple of years."
Annie Altman: "I told him over the series of those phone calls too, that I had started sex work, and distinctly remember when I first told him about doing sex work and he said, quote, 'Good.'"
Ellen Huet: "Annie was stung, because she remembers that he didn't ask anything more about it. Like she was sharing something that was painful for her and he was blowing past it."
Annie Altman: "To hear your little sister tell you she's doing something she doesn't want to do related to sex, and for the response to be 'Good.' So I was like, 'Oh, you're glad that I'm starting to post on OnlyFans. It sounds 'good' to you because I'm supporting myself, even if I'm telling you I'm doing this as a plan Z because I don't know what else to do.'"
Ellen Huet: "A person close to Sam says that Sam remembers the conversation differently. Annie and Sam are mostly estranged. After that conversation, she kept living in Hawaii, struggling in obscurity. Meanwhile, Sam was ascendant. He was doing world tours. {He was} CEO of the year {in Time Magazine.} He officially became a billionaire. Most of the world had no idea Annie Altman existed, let alone that she was depending on OnlyFans for survival. But last fall, New York Magazine published a profile of Sam, and the journalist, Elizabeth Weil, interviewed Annie. The article was the first time a lot of people found out Sam even had a sister, myself included."
Annie Altman: "Some of the trippiest messages I got from reporters, when that article first came out, were reporters who have watched every interview Sam has ever done, saying 'He's never mentioned a sister.'"
Ellen Huet: "Annie worries that because she's basically invisible in Sam's public life life, especially compared to his tight relationship with his brothers, reporters won't take her story seriously."
Annie Altman: "That they will then question my validity, or {be like} 'Oh, well, she's crazy. Maybe...he's just not talking about her because she's so mentally unstable, and so now let's recycle the 'Annie's crazy' narrative and 'This is why she can't be trusted', or 'We should just ignore her.'"
Ellen Huet: "In the days leading up to the article coming out, New York Magazine reached out to Sam and his family and OpenAI for fact-checking and to confirm details. So Sam knew the story was going to mention Annie. And then the day before the article ran, something spurred Sam to make an unexpected move. He emailed Annie."
Annie Altman: "And the night before it {the Elizabeth Weil article} came out was Yom Kippur --
Ellen Huet: "-- the Jewish day of forgiveness --"
Annie Altman: "Sam emailed me, 'no subject' and in all lowercase, and said, 'hi annie. in the spirit of it almost being yom kippur, i wanted to apologize and ask for forgiveness for something. i should have kept sending you money without conditions even though our family had concerns; i was in a tough position of wanting to let mom drive decisions as the parent and seeing how much stress you were causing her (and also agreeing it would be better for everyone if you were able to support yourself, and thinking that you needed medical help) and it being clear you just weren't really able to function very well. still, i made the wrong call and should just have just kept supporting you; i sincerely apologize. i hope you find peace.' There's no mention of this article that's coming out tomorrow, and there's no mention of the fact checking that he just went through."
Ellen Huet: "Annie felt that the timing of this email was really telling. That for all this time, while Annie was staying in the background, Sam didn't feel any need to apologize. Then, just as she's about to exert a little bit of power over him, by complicating his image, he reaches out, and invokes their shared Jewish heritage to ask for forgiveness. I asked Annie how she felt about Sam speaking publicly about universal basic income and ending poverty when he hasn't done the same for her."
Annie Altman: "It was a very big slap in the face. It feels embarrassing to be related to him. It's beyond depressing and heartbreaking and disappointing that someone who I thought had a different moral compass, or who I thought would be there for me when I needed someone and was really sick, wasn't...in the same way I'm gonna be grieving my dad for the rest of my life, I'm gonna be grieving Sam for the rest of my life. And the sadness of...of someone who saw me in a walking boot and didn't say, 'How can I help you.' It's why I use the term 'sibling' and not 'brother.'"
Ellen Huet: "Even though Annie's story is really complicated, I think it's relevant to all of us. Because when Sam is going around talking about our AI future, he acknowledges that AI could take our jobs and upend society and money as we know it. And he says he'll come up with a solution for us: universal basic income. But, when he's faced with the messy reality of his own sister, suddenly it's not so simple. In public, he is literally saying that there shouldn't be poverty. {That} money will be given away to everyone. In private, when Annie asked for help, he didn't come through for her in the way she needed."

[BB24e] OpenAI Part 5: Beware the Ides of November -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-27-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

[AA24i] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1804249479945818324 -- posted on
6-21-2024

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"Hi @JBSchool!
Why so much attention for my sibling who went there, and not for me? Wouldn’t be about donations, would it?
Would love to see how much money you were given while I was navigating my Dad’s Trust being withheld, tendon/nerve/ovarian cyst pain, and homelessness - want to share?"

[BB24e] OpenAI Part 5: Beware the Ides of November -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-27-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

[AA24o] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1808260107861741905 -- posted on 7-2-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"My siblings’ nickname for me was “Trash Can”
Can
Cannie
The Can
Miss Can
Bad Baby Trash Can
Didn’t fully grasp the meanness until I was working as a personal care attendant, and the nonverbal wheelchair bound client cut me out a magazine quote that said “YOU CAN!” and gave it me with genuine love ❤️"

[AA24e] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822099256154689807 -- posted on
8-9-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"My long term home was broken into one month after these tweets."

[AA24l] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822099397561450665 -- posted on
8-9-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Note: this is a Tweet reply to [AA24e].
"My two most valuable items were left untouched."

[AA24g] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822028939432448092 -- posted on
8-9-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"To Jack {Altman} in 2020.
I’m still curious how grown men allowed their mother to make their financial decisions, and not help their sister (when allowed to call me that) with groceries when I was very physically ill"
- "Okay, I'll text her. I'd like to change the arrangement somehow to involve less checking in, as I'm in agreement with your and (especially) Sam's request for us to take more space. I'd like us to please talk in the future, Sam more too, about why she is able to make any of your financial decisions"

[AA24h] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822029242584199315 -- posted on
8-9-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"For context: Connie (biological mother) kicked me off her health insurance less than three months after Dad died, when I was 24 and could have stayed on her work one for two more years"

[AA24p] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822042911648968746 -- posted on 8-9-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

My note: I'm pretty sure this Tweet from Annie is directed at her mother, Connie.
"You birthed me and raised me, abused me and let others abuse me. Sure you know me well, and I know your bullshit just as well, thanks.
Haven’t talked with you in over four years, and my PTSD is the best it’s ever been. Please thank your mom for me, for reprimanding you for neglecting me."
- My note: I think Connie's mom was Marjori Mae “Peggy” Francis Gibstine, based on her obiturary.

[AA24j] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1824297776810954923 - posted on
8-15-2024

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"Can you imagine how much more I’ll scare them now that I’m getting my tendon/nerve/ovaries cared for, not sucking dick for rent money while my Dad’s Trust was completely withheld, and learning it’s safe and allowed for me to share my story on my terms 🥰"

[AA24f] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1826101121334784426 -- posted on
8-20-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"If the multiverse is real, I'd love to meet the version of me who did run away to the circus at 5 years old after telling her birth mother about wanting to end this life thing and being touched by older siblings, and said "mother" decided to instead protect her sons and demand to receive therapy and chores only from her female child."

[AA24q] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1829678329802473781 -- posted on 8-31-2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

"My last in-person client came out to me as gay followed with “omg I haven’t ever said that out loud before,” as I flashbacked and did my best to stay in “work mode.” Will be more/less something when less ptsd-y"

[AA24r] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1830773664784228502 -- posted on 9-2-2024

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My note: Annie posted this as a Repost of a Tweet that I made.

[AA24v] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1830774211465617685 - posted on 9-2-2024

My note:
- Annie posted this as a Repost of a Tweet that I made.
- in my Tweet, I incorrectly thought that the two sexual assaults Annie experienced occurred while Annie was doing sex work.
- At the time I made my Tweet, I was going off of Annie's How I Started Escorting [AA24b] post that she'd made on her blog on March 27, 2024. [AA24b] seemed to be a largely chronological retelling of events, and in [AA24b],
  - "So back to September 2020, starting OnlyFans. I started very softcore, for all sorts of reasons" appeared 7 paragraphs before "I had two adulthood sexual assaults while living on Maui that triggered more flashbacks."
  - "I decided to get on SeekingArrangements again, now living on Maui." appeared 1 paragraph before "I had two adulthood sexual assaults while living on Maui that triggered more flashbacks."
- Thus, I'd had the impression that the 2 sexual assaults Annie had described had occurred while Annie was doing sex work, not before she started doing sex work.
Annie's Tweet:
- "The two assaults were outside of in-person sex work, both right before I started and another final straw of sorts.
- Adulthood assault are common triggers for remembering more childhood information, patterns get repeated until they are sorted."

[AA24n] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1836302674024894927 - posted on
9-18-2024

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"Things Grandma was right about..."dwarf tossing” with my baby body was wrong...{and} hot baths cure most things"

[AA24u] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1841216063637504499 - posted October 1, 2024

✨Stop normalizing men being allowed input into pregnancy challenge✨
With Love,
Someone With An Absive Sibling (She Went No Contact With) Who Wanted Her To Be A Surrogate

[AA24s] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1869088584680235311 - posted on December 17, 2024

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"Three years ago I came home to my front door kicked open, and my two most valuable items left untouched. My uke, my hoodie from Goodwill, and my two vibrators from Target were stolen."
"Amazing how strongly the body remembers emotional anniversaries."

Part of the the frame of Annie's door appears to have been ripped off, and is now lying on her stairs, after her door was kicked in by whoever broke into her home in December 2021. Small, white pieces of the wall, also presumably dislodged from the force of the kick that broke in Annie's door, are seen scattered on the tiled floor by the door.
**Source:** **https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1869088584680235311**

One can see where the segment of the door frame was ripped off, leaving a splintered segment of the wall behind. The silver metal of the door lock is visible, suggesting that it ripped through the doorframe when the door was kicked in. The small, white pieces of the wall, seen also in the above image, are in clearer view.
**Source:** **https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1869088584680235311**

A closer look at the top of the kicked-in door.
**Source:** **https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1869088584680235311**

A closer look at the lock and handle of the kicked-in door.
**Source:** **https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1869088584680235311**

[AA24t] The HumAnnie (draft #3) (while getting the 10 Cs tattooed) - posted to YouTube on November 28, 2024

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

3:24 -- "Getting myself off a high dose of 10 years on an anti-depressant I didn't exactly get myself onto"
7:56 -- "I was 5 years old the first time I expressed a desire to end my life. I didn't know the word 'suicide' at the time. I knew about death and knew I could be the one to do it. I sat my mother down on my bed to tell her, and it must have scared and/or strengthened the science-worshipping atheism right into her. I didn't know the word for 'sex' either, but I told her why I was climbing into her bed or the bathtub at 2 a.m. for safety. She chose to protect her sons and to bully me, unless I had a friend over, who she would bully and shit-talk them and their parents when they left. So if you're also from, or lived in, St. Louis, I've definitely heard the woman who birthed me say mean things about you. I attempted - this is true - to get her to write her own book instead of passive-aggressively shaming me for pursuing my genuine interests. Unfortunately it didn't work. I've explored labels of, and treatments for, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, the regular plain post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, ADHD, all the eating disorders, irritible bowel syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), achilles and posterior tibiopathy, tibial nerve pain, and most recently was diagnosed with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). I'm just essentially out here out here collecting acronyms, I suppose."
11:34 -- "My dad sadly died in 2018 of a heart attack and the woman who birthed me helped to withhold his money, intended for me, from me because apparently disregarding his wishes while he was alive wasn't enough."
12:55 -- {Annie has/had} "PTSD from every form of abuse, and then being too physically ill to work any normal job while dad's money was withheld from me, and so starting adult work for survival. Apparently I needed the backbone, and the wakeup call, of clients genuinely caring about my safety more than my living relatives. Sex work was not the will of my dad's word, for his only daughter, and still he would have been proud of me staying alive. This show is for my dad Jerry."
20:20 -- "Did you know that serotonin was first discovered in the gut not the brain? Baby me projectile-vomiting out of my crib would have been very comforted to know this. Well, obviously, not as a baby I wouldn't have understood."
21:44 -- "I first got into meditating in college. And I had some sort of 'come to Moses moment' one time, running late to a...meeting for a group meditation, and realizing how silly and hilarious it was for me to be rushing to sit still and silent on time. Unravelling the shame conditioning that it would mean I was a bad person, and not simply someonee who was late and came in and sat down quietly. If anything, it would be more disrespectful to the meditation group for me to enter the room all out of breath from running and frazzled from rushing."
24:54 -- "Seems like now is the time for me to talk about the sex work...technically my first experience was over video chat at the end of 2019, and then more officially I started virtual and in-person work in 2020. I was very physically ill and out of options, and having daily PTSD flashbacks consumed by my own sexual trauma, self-therapizing already. I attempted an Etsy shop and Patreon and more, and I still couldn't fully monetize my own projects. And I was too sick for any standing jobs. I was also too consumed by flashbacks to work regular hours at an online job. I was scrambling for options. Whatever odd jobs I had capacity for didn't even pay enough, and I needed money even more to get support for all my body {that had} shut down."
32:04 -- "When I was little, we got a new family car, and I had a tantrum like I was mourning the death of a loved one. A perfect faded royal blue van, traded out for a gold-ish Suburban. I may or may not have kicked the new car when it came in. I'm definitely better with change now, though I still have that part of me."
54:44 -- "My high school senior superlative was 'least likely to not say something'."
59:11 -- "To me it seems like the less connection someone has with their feelings, the more likely they are to cause harm rather than account for their thoughts and feelings...I spent a lot of energy attempting to express this to people I love forever, yes, despite all of it, and needed to start no contact with in 2020. I grew up in a house where everyone besides my dad would have rolled their eyes about that, and psychology was referred to as a pseudo-science. So yes, feelings of all kind were belittled. Little me had no idea that asking the woman who birthed me about her obvious sadness would be received so sadly. Certain things from my childhood are funnier with time, and certain are more sad. I don't fully know how to process it all."

[AA--a] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtetAsfpmhb/

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

same as [AA24f] above

[AA--b] https://www.instagram.com/p/CuXd3H0u0e3/

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"Yeah I was super sick...and houseless...and sucking "parts" for...{money?}...and so now -- well, first of all, 'cause that was some outrageously good fuckery (abuse), and -- now I'm un-fuck-with-able!"

[AA--c] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtIzt-uudhr/

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

[AA--d] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpx3evHv1F0/

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"Reposting for you to read before you reach out about OpenAI and ChatGPT.

I’m just at the light at the end of tunnel of four years of being sick and broke and shadowbanned. I’d do it again to go no contact and feel physically and emotionally safe for the first time in my life.

Yes business life and personal life and different, and also “how you do anything is how you do everything.” Please vote with your dollars, your attention, and your truth.

#truthcomesouteventually #trueshit #allhumansarehuman"

[AA--e] https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17865620213032124/

⬇️ See dropdown section ⬇️

Here, Annie provides a set of screen captures (in the form of an Instagram story called "Hi censorship") showing instances she's identified as shadowbanning / unusual activity surrounding various posts she's made on social media.

[AA--f] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxliM2oyXBY/

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"Victim mentality or survivor mentality? Did that happen “to you” or “for you”? (Note to watch out for spiritual bypassing and erasure of real experiences in your ~reflecting~)

I survived Achilles and posterior tibial tendinopathy. I survived posterior tibial nerve pain that radiated to my ankle, knee, and pelvis. I survived PCOS and those particular ovarian cysts that got intense enough to warrant scans. I survived IBS and every single disordered eating game.

I survived listening to my body fall apart as it told me the stories I had not yet been ready to hear the full depths of. I survived 18 months of nearly all-day PTSD flashbacks of childhood assaults.

I survived my Dad’s will being withheld for over a year, and money he left me being withheld by millionaires relatives. I survived the grief of my decision to go no-contact with said relatives.

I survived being shadowbanned across multiple accounts, while attempting to make a livable income online. I survived an in-person profession that was a plan Z last resort, and learned and was therapized by it.

I survived every form of ab*sive behavior. I survived relatives telling and showing me I was “crazy” for pointing out said ab*se.

I survived grieving my Dad and somehow got even closer with him, and yes forever grieving.

I survived myself.

#everyoneisgoingthroughsomething #allhumansarehuman #thehumannie #trueshit #truthcomesouteventually"

[AA--g] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxgtpcwvP4w/

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- The image:
  - "Dec 19, 2019
    
    Hello Internet. I've gotten myself into a very difficult position, as I've been unable to work as much as I've needed due to my mental health and physical health. I put myself in a financially risky position to pursue my one woman show and podcast, and then had unexpected costs with health and technical difficulties. I'm dealing with the consequences of my own decisions and I need help. My Venmo is @Annie-Altman if you're able.
    
    In this calendar year I observed the one year anniversary of my dad's death, discussed another mental health label to add to my collection, got diagnosed with PCOS (scans to rule out adrenal tumors, pelvic ultrasounds, blood tests), had IBS flare up again, had a long-term achilles injury flare up the longest I've experienced it, had almost all of my personal accounts have attempted or successful logins, had people logging on my wifi and other wifi issues (4 new modems, had excessive cell phone service issues, the pity-party list continues. I'm beyond my capacity of what I can handle alone. I -"
- Annie's post:
  - "#fbf to a silly and sad Annie, “putting herself in a position” to save other people who were harming her.
    
    I’ve since learned part of personal accountability can be noticing my own savior complex, and allowing someone else to experience the consequences of their decisions.
    
    Third sentence there ought to have read 'My millionaire relatives are refusing to give me help, and are withholding money from my dead Dad that I quit a job because of, while sick and in paperwork process to receive what he left in my name.'"

[AA--h] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxOgnm4yWHY/

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"Almost all of my social media accounts have been/are shadowbanned, and this is an unfortunate truth for many. OpenAI would be tagged here also if they had a account.

It started for me before any swork {sex work} started. I don't mean that this account would be at 100K or some set number. I do mean it makes no sense to be unable to pass 1K, with over 100 podcasts and other creations, and consistent posting.

Old videos wil {sic} get reduced to something like 2 views on @instagram and @youtube , podcast rating get frequently deleted on @apple @applepodcasts , people will get automatically unfollowed, posts will be restricted in who sees them, and more.

It's been really demoralizing on a lot of levels, which is part of the purpose of shadowbanning. The other purpose of shadowbanning is direct repression of ways I can support myself with my art, like my @etsy and @patreon , or podcast ads for @anchor.fm ."

[MLW25a] https://ia600609.us.archive.org/8/items/gov.uscourts.moed.217171/gov.uscourts.moed.217171.1.0.pdf -- legal complaint filed 01-06-2025

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"4. All of the events and wrongful acts giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims herein occurred at the parties’ family home located at 22 Arundel Place, Clayton, Missouri 63105 (the “Family Home”) between the approximate years of 1997 through 2006."
"In approximately 1997, Plaintiff, Ann Altman, was three years old and residing in the Family Home with Defendant, Sam Altman. 6. Beginning at or about that time, Defendant, Sam Altman, forced Plaintiff to touch his penis and perform oral penetration on him. Sam Altman was twelve years old at the time."
"7. From approximately 1997 to 1999, when Plaintiff, Ann Altman, was between the ages of three to five years old, the foregoing conduct occurred several times per week where Defendant, Sam Altman, forced Plaintiff to touch his penis and perform oral penetration on him. 8. During the aforementioned period of time, Defendant Sam Altman’s acts of sexual abuse progressed to digital penetration of Plaintiff’s vagina and anus, and at times he would also forcibly perform oral sex on Plaintiff."
"9. At all times relevant herein, Defendant, Sam Altman, groomed and manipulated Plaintiff, Ann Altman, into believing the aforementioned sexual acts were her idea, despite the fact she was under the age of five years old when the sexual abuse began and Defendant was nearly a teenager."
"10. Beginning in approximately 1999 or 2000, Defendant, Sam Altman, began to penetrate Plaintiff, Ann Altman, with his penis both vaginally and anally."
"11. The foregoing level of childhood sexual abuse continued for a period of approximately eight or nine years until Plaintiff was eleven or twelve years old wherein Defendant, Sam Altman, regularly continued to commit numerous acts of rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, molestation, sodomy, and battery upon Plaintiff, Ann Altman."
"12. The last acts of rape committed by Defendant, Sam Altman, against Plaintiff, Ann Altman, occurred when Defendant, Sam Altman, was an adult and Plaintiff, Ann Altman, was a minor."
"COUNT I Sexual Assault"
"19. At no time did Plaintiff, Ann Altman, consent to the aforementioned sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual penetration, sodomy, and/or sexual contact by Defendant, Sam Altman, nor did Plaintiff maintain the capacity to consent due to her minor status."
"20. As a direct and proximate result of the aforementioned acts, Defendant, Sam Altman, created in Plaintiff’s mind, a well-founded fear of imminent peril, caused by Defendant Sam Altman’s ability to commit an unwanted and forceful sexual assault and battery, and Defendant, Sam Altman, by committing the aforementioned acts, thereby committed a sexual assault upon Plaintiff, Ann Altman."
"21. For the approximate years of 1997 through 2006, at the times that Defendant, Sam Altman, sexually assaulted Plaintiff, Defendant, Sam Altman, intended to commit an unlawful and outrageous touching upon the person of Plaintiff, Ann Altman, without any lawful justification."
"22. Defendant Sam Altman’s actions amounted to willful and wanton misconduct and/or a reckless disregard for the health and safety of Plaintiff, Ann Altman."
"23. As a direct and proximate result of the foregoing acts of sexual assault upon Plaintiff, Ann Altman, by Defendant, Sam Altman, Plaintiff has suffered great bodily injury, including but not limited to, physical injuries associated with the harms committed; she has also experienced PTSD, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, and depression, which is expected to continue into the future; she has experienced embarrassment and humiliation; Plaintiff has incurred numerous medical bills and other health-related bills as a result of medical and mental health treatment for her injuries, and is expected to incur the same in the future; she has lost wages and benefits she would have otherwise received, but for the sexual assault by Defendant; and may suffer such loss of wages and benefits in the future; she has suffered a loss of enjoyment of a normal life as a consequence of her emotional injuries and she has lost her ability to engage in the same kinds of normal activities, all to her damage."
"WHEREFORE, Plaintiff, Ann Altman, requests that judgment be entered on her behalf against Defendant, Samuel Altman, for actual damages in a sum in excess of Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars ($75,000.00), for punitive damages, and for costs of suit."
"COUNT II Sexual Battery"
"19. For the approximate years of 1997 through 2006, Defendant, Sam Altman, repeatedly and continually sexually assaulted, sexually penetrated, sexually abused, raped, sodomized, and battered Plaintiff, Ann Altman."
"20. At no time did Plaintiff, Ann Altman, consent to the aforementioned sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual penetration, sodomy, sexual contact, and/or battery by Defendant, Sam Altman, nor did Plaintiff maintain the capacity to consent due to her minor status."
"21. At the time Defendant, Sam Altman, committed the aforementioned acts, he intended to commit an unlawful and outrageous touching upon the person of Plaintiff, Ann Altman, without any lawful justification."
"22. As a direct and proximate result of the aforementioned acts, Defendant, Sam Altman, committed an unlawful and outrageous touching upon the person of Plaintiff, Ann Altman, without any lawful justification or consent, thereby committing a battery upon her."
"23. Defendant Sam Altman’s actions amounted to willful and wanton misconduct and/or a reckless disregard for the health and safety of Plaintiff, Ann Altman."
"24. As a direct and proximate result of the foregoing acts of sexual battery upon Plaintiff, Ann Altman, by Defendant, Sam Altman, Plaintiff has suffered great bodily injury, including but not limited to, physical injuries associated with the harms committed; she has also experienced PTSD, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, and depression, which is expected to continue into the future; she has experienced embarrassment and humiliation; Plaintiff has incurred numerous medical bills and other health-related bills as a result of medical and mental health treatment for her injuries, and is expected to incur the same in the future; she has lost wages and benefits she would have otherwise received, but for the sexual assault by Defendant; and may suffer such loss of wages and benefits in the future; she has suffered a loss of enjoyment of a normal life as a consequence of her emotional injuries and she has lost her ability to engage in the same kinds of normal activities, all to her damage."
"WHEREFORE, Plaintiff, Ann Altman, requests that judgment be entered on her behalf against Defendant, Samuel Altman, for actual damages in a sum in excess of Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars ($75,000.00), for punitive damages, and for costs of suit."

[SA25a] https://x.com/sama/status/1876780763653263770 -- posted 01-11-2025

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"My sister has filed a lawsuit against me. Here is a statement from my mom, brothers, and me:"
- "Our family loves Annie and is very concerned about her well-being. Caring for a family member who faces mental health challenges is incredibly difficult. We know many families facing similar struggles understand this well."
- "Over the years, we've tried in many ways to support Annie and help her find stability, following professional advice on how to be supportive without enabling harmful behaviors. To give a sense of our efforts, we have given her monthly financial support, directly paid her bills, covered her rent, helped her find employment opportunities, attempted to get her medical help, and have offered to buy her a house through a trust (so that she would have a secure place to live, but not be able to sell it immediately). Via our late father's estate, Annie receives monthly support, which we expect to continue for the rest of her life."
- "Despite this, Annie continues to demand more money from us. In this vein, Annie has made deeply hurtful and entirely untrue claims about our family, and especially Sam. We've chosen not to repsond publicly, out of respect for her privacy and our own. However, she has now taken legal action against Sam, and we feel we have no choice but to address this."
- "Over the years, she has accused members of our family of improperly withholding our father's 401k funds, hacking her wifi, and "shadowbanning" her from various websites including ChatGPT, Twitter, and more. The worst allegation she has made is that she was sexually abused by Sam as a child (she has also claimed instances of sexual abuse from others). Her claims have evolved drastically over time. Newly for this lawsuit, they now include allegations of incidents where Sam was over 18."
- "All of these claims are utterly untrue. This situation causes immense pain to our entire family. It is especially gut-wrenching when she refuses conventional treatment and lashes out at family members who are genuinely trying to help."
- "We ask for understanding and compassion from everyone as we continue to support Annie in the best way we can. We sincerely hope she finds the stability and peace she's been searching for."
- "-Connie, Sam, Max, and Jack"

[TC25a] Mother of Likely Murdered OpenAI Whistleblower Reveals All, Calls for Investigation of Sam Altman -- Tucker Carlson

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Beginning around 12:14:
- Tucker Carlson: "But did your son {Suchir Balaji} ever talk to you about Sam Altman? Did he ever say anything about Sam Altman?"
- Poornima Ramarao {Suchir Balaji's mother}: "Not to me, but to his friends, a lot. When he was in Catalina Islands {from November 16, 2024 to November 22, 2024 (Suchir died November 22, 2024)}, he {Suchir Balaji} spoke a lot against him {Sam Altman}. He literally didn't like him. In fact, I've seen his chat logs, saying that he wanted to work with Annie Altman in her nonprofit work."
- Tucker Carlson: "And that would be Sam's sister, who has accused him of sexual abuse?"
- Poornima Ramarao: "Yes."
- Tucker Carlson: "Hmm. Really? He wrote that down?"
- Poornima Ramarao: "Yes. So, he knew what personality Sam Altman had, and his main concerns were the lies...{the} lies that Sam Altman {told}...he was lying a lot, and my son is very ethical, and he couldn't stand it."

Wristwatch-Related References

[SW22a] Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar reference 1526 in yellow gold, Superwatchman.com, published May 9, 2022

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"Patek Philippe’s first commercial manufacturing perpetual calendar was the reference 1526. This is the ultimate permanent calendar for most enthusiasts, including the collectors. Over the years, numerous designers have produced alternate calendar displays. However, nothing has come anywhere close to the 1526’s clear, readable, and visually beautiful dial."
"The Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar case is made of pure 18k yellow gold and is 34mm in diameter by 11.5mm in thickness. The acrylic crystal is spherical while the back of the casing snaps shut...The casing body is brush polished, while the snapback is finished. The lugs have a modest downward arch—besides, the brown leather strap with Patek Philippe clasp in 18k gold. The calendar info is also displayed on the dial in an ideal manner."
"The dial has a lovely, homogeneous eggshell-colored patina that complements the rose gold color of the casing wonderfully. The logo and scales are solid enamel and are as polished as a refined connoisseur could anticipate. The gold mark beneath the top left lug is clear, and the signature on the right ring is profound and prominent, indicating that the case is strong and resistant to scratch."
"In addition, the Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar dial is 100 percent genuine and untouched. It is matte silver in color with attached golden Arabic numerals and hour indicator dots and a written minutes scale around the outside. The golden hands are also distinctive and are leaf style, commonly known as Feuille hands in Patek jargon. The supplemental second’s hand is a tiny version of the golden leaf style. The blued hand along the outside chapter enclosing the moonphase window, whereas the day and month are presented under the 12 o’clock position, indicates the date. The original moonphase disc is blue with gold stars as well as a moon."
"During the model’s history, just 165 pieces with references to 1526 perpetual calendars were produced...Patek Philippe 1526s are incredibly uncommon."

[KTT23a] Watch Identifier: Sam Altman’s Greubel Forsey Watch - KeepTheTime.com, published December 1, 2023, last modified August 28, 2024

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"If you’re wondering what watch Sam Altman wears, at least one of his choices appears to be a Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1."
"In the comparison below, the watch was flipped to put the crown on the right side. From there, you can see the long tourbillon bridge and main dial location seem to match the layout of the Greubel Forsey.
"Let’s look at the overall layout side-by-side. The image below includes a Greubel Forsey image with a similar red gold/silver dial configuration."
The watch may stick out prominently from Mr. Altman’s sleeve, but that doesn’t make it any easier to identify from the video. However, the thickness, short lugs, and bar across the lower left are definitely leaning towards the Invention Piece 1."
"Not to mention, pieces like this carry retail prices so far from obtainability that the average watch collector finds them to be fun to gawk at and read about, but that’s about it – the way car people might drool over images of the Ferrari Daytona SP3 or Lamborghini Sian (although Greubel Forsey is more along the lines of a Pininfarina Battista or Pagani Utopia)."
"The price is not the only limitation in acquiring an Invention Piece 1… there were only 33 total watches available in the entire world."
"If you’re going to spend that much on a timepiece, you probably want people to see it. The Invention Piece 1 is the perfect wingman in that regard. Boasting a diameter of 43.5mm and standing tall at almost 17mm in thickness...At about 13 seconds into the video… wait a minute, is that Sam Altman doing a classic watch geek move of looking down at his wrist to make sure his watch is exposed?"
"The Invention Piece 1 is available in 18K white gold, 5N red gold, or platinum. 11 pieces were produced in each metal type."
I found the date of publication and the last modified date using (once again) Inspect Element:

[BI23b] Sam Altman's $480,000 watch, the Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1, is so rare only 33 were ever made (also on the Internet Archive) -- published Dec 23, 2023

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- - "To Sam Altman's many titles — ousted-then-returned OpenAI CEO, former Y Combinator president, universal basic income enthusiast, part-time Hawaii resident — we must add one more: Watch guy."
  - "Altman owns a watch so rare that only 33 were ever made, according to luxury watch website KeepTheTime. After spotting Altman wearing a chunky gold watch at a Wired event in 2018, BI asked the site for assistance identifying the distinctive timepiece. (BI, which went way too hard, also asked for help from a subreddit for watch enthusiasts, a longtime watch salesperson at Tiffany's San Francisco location, watch experts at several high-end auction houses, and people lurking in the Discord of the open-source intelligence site Bellingcat.)"
  - "The watch, the Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 in red gold, was priced at 520,000 Swiss Francs when it was released in 2008, a spokesperson for Greubel Forsey confirmed. At the exchange rate of the time, that works out to roughly $480,000."
  - "Altman has also flaunted his more modest Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar 1526, one of which sold at Christie's for $106,250 in 2017."
  - "Altman posted a photo of the timepiece on the r/watches subreddit in May 2018, with a ❤️ emoji, and was spotted wearing the watch at a congressional hearing this year where he testified to the need for AI regulation."
"Altman's pricey watch collection is just one part of his ultra-luxurious lifestyle. Business Insider previously reported that he went on an 18-month, $85 million real estate shopping spree in recent years. He was spotted driving a red McLaren F1 around northern California this month. A similar car was expected to sell for up to $15 million at auction in 2015. Altman also reportedly owns a Lexus LFA racing car, one of which recently sold for $1.1 million at auction."