Updates as of November 2024: I've added in a substantial amount of new information that Annie and other sources have provided since the day that I originally made this post (October 7, 2023.) I added some in-text citations so it's easier to see how I've constructed the Timeline below. I also changed my Twitter username for reasons I provided here. If you want to see what this post looked like before I made these updates, it's available here on the Internet Archive.
Content warning: Sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, suicidal ideation, severe mental illnesses/trauma, graphic (sexual) language.
This post aims to aggregate a collection of statements made by Annie Altman, the (lesser-known) younger sister of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
In these statements, Annie asserts that she has suffered various severe forms of abuse from Sam Altman throughout her life, including being sexually abused by him as a child. She also states that she has experienced abuse from her other brother Jack Altman, though to a lesser extent.
Annie has stated that the forms of abuse she's endured include sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, technological (shadowbanning, hacking), pharmacological (forced Zoloft), and psychological abuse.
I do not attempt to speak for Annie; rather, my goal is to provide an objective and unbiased aggregation of this situation, and the claims Annie has made.
I have made this post because I think that it may be important to be aware of the existence of the claims that Annie has made about Sam, given his strong influence over the development and alignment of increasingly powerful AI models. I have also made this post because I think that Annie's claims are not covered well elsewhere - at least, at the time of this post's writing.
Disclaimer: I have tried my best to assemble all relevant information I could find related to this (extremely serious) topic, but this is likely not a complete collection of information regarding the Sam Altman's alleged abuse of Annie Altman.
An outline of this post
Note: I am awe that this post is rather long. However, most of the content is summarized in the Timelinesection (~20 minute read.)
The Timeline section gives my attempt at a timeline detailing Annie's claims in chronological order. It provides a summary of most the information in the post. After the Timeline section, I then provide other sources & references, and excerpts from them, which I used to create the Timeline.
This post provides my understanding of Annie's claims, and the situation. It's definitely possible that I've (unintentionally) gotten things wrong, misinterpreted things, or been biased in how I've covered this situation, despite my best efforts not to be.
Unlike other journalists & reporters who've covered Annie's allegations, I've never personally met or interviewed Sam, Annie, or any of their family in-person. Everything in this post is just information that I found on the Internet.
I've used citations & links heavily throughout the post, in an attempt to make it clear how I've come to my current understanding. By all means, go look at the source material and references yourself, and form your own understanding.
In an attempt to make this post clearer and easier to read, I've used "collapsible" sections, like this one.
You can click on the little ▶ triangle icon at the top-left of each collapsible section to un-collapse it, and reveal its hidden content. You can then click the ▼ icon again to re-collapse the section, and hide its content.
Note: there is still important information in many of the "dropdown" parts. A few of them are empty, and a few contain less-important information, but most actually do have additional information that you should read.
In other words -- don't misread this as "the information in the dropdown sections is redundant/irrelevant."
You should still read the information in all of the dropdown sections.
My ideal form of the content in this post would be a giant bullet list where you can "toggle" or "collapse" a single bullet point and sub-bullet point.
However, LessWrong (understandably) doesn't offer this feature. (It's more something you'd find in a note-taking app or something.)
So, using these dropdown sections is the closest I can get to that ideal.
I've also added some in-text citations.
I've included them so that you can more easily see how I've constructed this timeline from the source material that I reference throughout this post (e.g. news articles, posts on social media, etc.)
Each in-text citation is linked to a different part of this post where I've provided the corresponding reference.
The first two upper-case letters stand for the first and last name of the author of the reference.
Example: "AA" for "Annie Altman".
The two numbers that follow give the year in which the reference was authored.
Example: "19" for "2019".
The final lower-case letter doesn't have a specific meaning. It's just for distinguishing between different in-text citations that would otherwise look the same.
Example: "[AA19c]" vs "[AA19b]".
Note: some of the links on these in-text citations are currently outdated and/or don't work. For now, just use Command-F/Control-F, or scroll down manually, to see the corresponding refernece for each in-text citation.
I've purposefully aired on the side of potentially adding a bit "too much" detail in this timeline, as I'd rather do that than accidentally leave out information in a way that makes it hard to understand other events in the timeline.
There are various events in the timeline that, when you first read them, may seem "unnecessary" or "not relevant." But, generally, I include things in the timeline for a reason. Often, in this timeline, earlier events sort of "set up" events that follow years later. You often need to understand various events that occur earlier on in the timeline before you can understand various events that come later.
Throughout this post, I've bolded various segments that I feel are particularly important or relevant.
Timeline
April 22, 1985: Sam Altman is born, to parents Connie Gibstine (mother) and Jerry Altman (father.)
⟹Sam is ~9 years older than Annie, Max is ~7 years older than Annie, Jack is ~5 years older than Annie.
Beginning when Annie is a baby [AA24n] -- i.e. beginning somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997 -- Annie repeatedly experiences various forms of abuse from her biological siblings. That is, from her 3 brothers: Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman. It seems that most of the abuse that Annie has experienced from her 3 brothers has come from Sam.
On November 13, 2021, Annie wrote: "I experienced sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and technological abuse from my biological siblings, mostly Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman." [AA21a]
September 10, 2022, Annie wrote: "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." [AA22a]
Somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997, (Annie's brothers, I presume?) play "dwarf tossing" with Annie when she is a baby [AA24n]. Annie's grandmother witnesses this, and condemns it. [AA24n]
"Things Grandma was right about..."dwarf tossing” with my baby body was wrong" [AA24n]
Note on how I determined "between ~1994 and ~1997":
It seems that definitions vary regarding the age range in which a human is considered a "baby".
So, I just went with the conservative definition of "0-3 years."
Thus, because Annie was born in ~1994, the abuse, which perhaps started with "dwarf tossing" of Annie when she was a baby (0-3 years old), and then escalated over time, must have began between ~1994 and ~1997.
Annie has also written that her grandmother (who I think was Marjori Mae “Peggy” Francis Gibstine) reprimanded Connie for neglecting Annie -- see [AA24p].
~1996: Sam and Jack's grandmother gets each of them some stock in a company related to something they like. Sam is given stock in Apple, given his interest in computers. Jack is given stock in Applebee's, given that he was, as he puts it, "heavier as a child, as {Sam} like{s} to point out" [YC16a].
In one of the Altman family pictures above, from when Jack was younger, Jack does indeed look a bit heavier:
~August 1997: Sam, age 12, begins his time at the John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri, staring 7'th grade.
Timeline:
August 1997 - June 1998: 7th grade (for Sam, at JBS)
August 1998 - June 1999: 8th grade
August 1999 - June 2000: 9th grade
August 2000 - June 2001: 10th grade
August 2001 - June 2002: 11th grade
August 2002 - June 2003: 12th grade
I (inductively) estimated the month and year in which Sam started and ended each grade at JBS using the dates available on the calendar on JBS's website.
I don't know for sure that Sam did grades 7-12 there, but that's just what I'm guessing, since JBS says they're "for grades 7-12" in their X (Twitter) account bio.
Sources indicating that Sam graduated in 2003: here, here.
There are numerous sources that indicate that Sam attended JBS: here, here, here, here, etc.
In ~1998 or 1999, when Annie Altman is 4 years old and Sam Altman is 13 years old, Sam sexually abuses Annie [AA23a, AA--f] -- repeated molestation [AA23w] and touching her in private areas. [AA23x]
Annie has stated that:
Sam was something like her "first {sex work} client" [AA23j]
Sam used her to "help him figure out his sexuality" [AA23a]
(implied: in an inappropriate / nonconsensual way that would be classified as sexual abuse.)
I estimate the year in which the alleged sexual assault occurred from the fact that Annie claims that Sam was 13 when the alleged sexual assault occurred [AA23a]. Sam's birthday is April 22, 1985, and thus, for him to have been 13 at the time of the alleged sexual assault, the alleged sexual assault must have taken place in the range April 22 1998 -- April 22 1999.
From the birthdays I listed above -- at this time, the ages of the Altman siblings are as follows:
Sam is 13 years old
⟹Max is ~11
⟹Jack is ~9
Annie is 4
~1998-1999: Annie's 4-year-old mind represses her memories of these abuses [AA18b, AA23k, EW23a].
For the next ~20 years (~1998-2018) Annie's mind continues to repress her full memories of being abused. However, throughout those 20 years, Annie does recall bits and pieces of her memories of being sexually abused. These partial-memories confuse and disturb Annie, and she doesn't fully understand them when they recur to her. Crucially, Annie also doesn't remember that it was Sam who sexually abused her.
Also, over the next 20 years (~1998-2018), Annie experiences a variety of mental health issues, eating disorders, and other disturbing experiences (e.g. projectile vomiting during consensual sex), all caused by the abuse she experienced at a young age.
However, beginning in 2018, a sort of "perfect storm" of events unfold that cause Annie to gradually start recalling her full memories of being abused. This gradual process of Annie recalling her full memories of abuse occurs from ~2018-2021. I'll detail these events later on in this timeline.
My understanding is that this occurred as part of 4-year-old Annie's subconscious/automatic trauma response and/or as a mental defense mechanism.
That is, I think Annie's 4-year-old mind repressed the memories of this event because she was extremely young, and the event was extremely traumatic for her younger self in a way that was hard for her to even conceptualize, much less fully understand and remember.
Annie does not begin to fully recall her repressed memories until decades later, in a gradual process that intensifies from mid-2018 onwards (as the rest of this timeline describes.)
Decades later, about her gradual process of recalling her repressed memories, Annie would write:
On 11-8-2018: "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 began having panic attacks at a young age. I felt the impending doom of death before I had any concept of death." [AA18b]
On 4-21-2023: "I had a history since childhood of OCD, anxiety, depression, IBS, disorder eating - all covers for PTSD..."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...{in 2020} 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 for no contact with relatives...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." [AA23k]
On 10-15-2023: "I had only fuzzy memories of sexual abuse until I went no contact {with Sam and her other relatives}, 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." [AA23u]
On 3-27-2024, Annie wrote: "{In summer 2020} I decided to go full no contact with my relatives {Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie.}...After a couple months, I had to stop work trading on the farm because of {health issues with} my ankle again. Even small plantings and weeding was too much...I scrambled with my legs up the wall in constant ankle and knee pain...{In September 2020} my body was physically hurting in so many ways...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*...Most of my emotional and thought space was on various sexual healings of my own...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 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...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." [AA24b]
"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." [AA--f]
It seems that, before Annie started to recall her repressed memories, she only remembered that Sam had "read her books at bedtime." [EW23a] Only decades later did her recollection change: "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." [EW23a].
Note: when I first learned of Annie's story, I was confused by, and didn't fully understand, some of her symptoms. I've since learned more about common symptoms in people who experienced sexual abuse as a child.
Annie displays many of these symptoms, including:
- panic attacks beginning at a young age - waking up in the middle of the night needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety - suicidal ideation beginning at age 5-6 - "rationalizing away" and/or not understanding partial flashbacks (to the sexual abuse she experienced) that occurred earlier in her life - PTSD - developing eating disorders and body image problems from a young age - developing many mental illnesses (including suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, OCD, and more) from a young age - (initial) repression of the (full) memories of the abuse (as an automatic trauma response in the brain) - many more symptoms
From saprea.org, (Saprea seems to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that "exists to liberate individuals and society from child sexual abuse and its lasting impacts":
From saprea.org, (Saprea seems to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that "exists to liberate individuals and society from child sexual abuse and its lasting impacts":
At age 5 (~1999), Annie tells her mother, Connie Altman, that she wants to end her own life and that she was "touched by older siblings", and Connie "decided to instead protect her sons and demand to receive therapy and chores only from her female child." [AA24f]. In particular, (it seems) Connietells Annie to keep the sexual assault a secret [AA23m].
Decades later, Annie would write:
"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." [AA23m]
"Child-me...was told to stay quiet about other people's secrets - even when it made me physically ill." [AA23m]
{I presume that it was Annie's mother who told her to stay quiet, though it's not fully clear.}
"At age 5 {~1999}, {Annie} began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6 {~2000}, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word" [EW23a].
Annie writes, "I had a history since childhood of OCD, anxiety, depression, IBS, disorder eating - all covers for PTSD." [AA23k]
By "PTSD", I think Annie is specifically referring to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by the abuse she experienced (mostly) from Sam and (some) from Jack. [AA21a]
Annie writes in [AA18b]: "I began having panic attacks at a young age. I felt the impending doom of death before I had any concept of death...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 inferred the year that Annie graduated from JBS by looking closely at the bottom-right corner of the pictures she posts in [AA24i]:
This implies:
August 2006 - June 2007: 7th grade (for Annie, at JBS)
August 2007 - June 2008: 8th grade
August 2008 - June 2009: 9th grade
August 2009 - June 2010: 10th grade
August 2010 - June 2011: 11th grade
August 2011 - June 2012: 12th grade
I made the same assumptions/used the same reasoning to make the esitmates here as I did (above) with my estimates regarding Sam's time at JBS.
In 2005, Sam begins working on his startup, "Loopt" (formerly named "Radiate"). During his sophomore year at Standford (also in 2005), Sam meets Paul Graham. Paul Graham is quite impressed by Sam, and Loopt is accepted into Y Combinator's first cohort.
Graham spoke highly of Sam:
-- October 2006: "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.""
-- August 2008: "When we predict good outcomes for startups, the qualities that come up in the supporting arguments are toughness, adaptability, determination. Which means to the extent we're correct, those are the qualities you need to win. Investors know this, at least unconsciously. The reason they like it when you don't need them is not simply that they like what they can't have, but because that quality is what makes founders succeed. Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you."
-- April 2009: "I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."
During Sam's time at Loopt, a group of senior Loopt employees "twice urged board members to fire him as CEO over what they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior...Senior executives {at Loopt} 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." [WSJ23a]
Sam also helps orchestrate an elaborate, multi-year plan to seize control of Reddit, by slowly diluting the ownership Condé Naste (who'd acquired it) until Reddit was effectively owned, once again, by its original founders, who'd also been part of Y Combinator's first cohort. (The plan succeeded.)
(If the story told by Yishan Wong (former Reddit CEO) here on Reddit is to be believed:) Beginning sometime in the late 2000's, Sam and some of his associates at Y Combinator begin the execution of a years-long effort to dilute Condé Nast's ownership in Reddit, and return Reddit to the control of YC & Reddit's original founders. (This effort seems to have ultimately succeeded.) --
~2007: At age 13, Annie starts using Zoloft to help with symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), anxiety, and depression. [AA19b].
Annie eventually tapers herself off of Zoloft at age 22 (in ~2017) [AA19b, EW23a].
~2009: At age 15, Annie starts using birth control pills. [AA19b].
(I only include this because it becomes relevant later on, in the context presented in "Period lost, period found" [AA19b].)
Annie stops taking birth control pills at age 22, just before her 23rd birthday (~2017.)
Years, later, Annie wrote the following about her time in college (i.e. ~2012-2016):
On 10-15-2023, Annie wrote: "I had only fuzzy memories of sexual abuse until I went no contact {with Sam and her other relatives}, 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." [AA23u]
On 3-27-2024, Annie wrote: "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." [AA24b]
The flashbacks Annie describes {to the sexual abuse she experienced from Sam during her childhood} will re-appear later on in this timeline.
2012: Sam sells Loopt to Green Dot $43.4 million, coming away with $5 million himself. Sam uses that $5 million, along with money provided by Peter Thiel, to launch his own venture fund, Hydrazine Capital, with his brother Jack Altman. [EW23a]
"{Sam} also took a year off, read a stack of books, traveled, played video games, and, “like a total tech-bro meme,” he said, “was like, I’m gonna go to an ashram for a while, and it changed my life. I’m sure I’m still anxious and stressed in a lot of ways, but my perception of it is that I feel very relaxed and happy and calm."" [EW23a]
From a recent (September 24, 2024) podcast he did, it seems that Sam did a "weekend-long retreat in Mexico" where he did psychedelics, and that this retreat & the psychedelics he took significantly changed his inner state, helping him become more calm (he was more anxious before).
Sam Altman - Wikipediais where I got the information that Sam co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother Jack Altman.
On March 30, 2015, Annie submits an appeal letter [AA15a] to a Dean at Tufts University asking if Tufts will allow her to graduate early at the end of the semester {which would have been May 17, 2015} since, by that time, Annie would have completed all of her graduation requirements, except for Tufts University's "residency requirement."
In this letter, Annie states that:
For the first time, during her current semester {her 6'th semester}, she has started to consider not going to medical school (e.g. to get a MD or DO degree}, and has instead started to consider other (related) career options, such as becoming a nurse, physician's assistant, or a therapist.
She wants to have a "summer of my own therapy: taking counseling seriously in a way I have never before felt ready to...working towards whatever euphemism you prefer for “getting my head on straight” or “re-centering.”"
Annie's request to graduate early (in 6 semesters) is denied.
Annie still ends up finishing college early - just in 7 semesters [EW23a], rather than 6. She graduates with a degree in Biopsychology (in ~2016).
Upon graduating, Annie is extremely depressed [EW23a], and she does not pursue medical school [AA19b] as she'd initially intended to [AA15a].
In Annie's own words: "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.e. her blog on Medium.}" [AA19b].
From [EW23a]: "{Annie} left college early...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."
From [BB24d]: "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.""
At some point before October 3, 2016 [TF16a] - Jerry and Connie get a martial separation [AA23r, EW23a] --not a divorce, just a separation [AA23r].
Thus, legally, they remain married, even though they are separated [AA23r.]
(As with other events in this timeline, there's a reason I'm including this. Later on, this enables Connie to block Annie from receiving the funds her deceased father left to her.)
I infer that the separation (or divorce?) between Jerry and Connie occurred before the date that "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" [TF16a] was published in the New Yorker because, in that article, Connie is referred to as "Connie Gibstine" (rather than "Connie Altman"), which implies that, by the date of the article's publication, Connie had separated or divorced from Jerry.
October 3, 2016: "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" [TF16a] is published in the New Yorker. The author, Tad Friend, includes anecdotes from his time spent observing Sam's day-to-day activities, as well as quotes from Sam, his brothers, and their mother (Connie.)
"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.”"
~2017: At age 22, just before her 23rd birthday, Annie stops taking birth control pills. Around this same time, she also finishes tapering off of Zoloft. She also drastically alters her diet. [AA19b]
As a result, Annie loses her period for a year. [AA19b]
(I only include this because it becomes relevant later on, in the context presented in "Period lost, period found" [AA19b].)
November 29, 2017: Sam returns to John Burroughs School, where he speaks to students about "development of startups and AI...and our collective responsibility to make sure they benefit everyone." [JBS17a]
At point in time {it seems to me}:
Jerry (Sam's dad) is still living and working (overtime) in St. Louis (with a heart condition) [AA24c]
Annie has been (repeatedly) asking Sam to provide money and resources to Jerry {i.e. to help with his heart condition, or so he doesn't have to work overtime in his late 60's, or so he can retire.} [AA23q]
From what I can tell, Sam has not provided Jerry with money or resources. [AA24c]
January 2018: Jerry sends Annie a text, part of which reads, "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." [AA18a]
You may be thinking, "Why are you including this? This doesn't seem relevant."
I am including this because, as I cover later on in the Responding to Objections/Comments I've Seen From Others section, someone noted than Annie has "ate only beige foods for most of her life", with the implied argument being that Annie is sort of "crazy."
I don't think this is a convincing argument for Annie being "crazy." To clarify: it is relatively common for some people, especially during childhood, to be sort of a "picky eater" and only want to eat "beige foods", i.e. foods whose color is generally white or beige. {More on this in a bit.}
Also -- as I understand it, Sam's sexual abuse of Annie when she was 4 years old was the reasonwhy she developed unusual eating patterns in the first place.
Annie, in [AA23k]: "I had a history since childhood of OCD, anxiety, depression, IBS, disorder eating - all covers for PTSD. Also tonsillitis yay"
Annie (starting at 1:09 in the video): "I was a very picky eater for most of my life. I was a vegetarian by choice as a little kid...I chose {to do this} in kindergarten...I also was very picky, and a very controlling type {of} person, and so food became a thing to control...and it also became a really physical, textural thing. The textures of different foods were really freaking me out, and I had all of these taste aversions, and very real reactions...so basically for the first two decades of my life I subsisted on eggs, and cheese, and peanut butter, and bread, and potatoes, and rice, and tortillas. And a lot of those things, for the majority of that time, weren't like..."good" quality. It was {like} Wonderbread...so I would say, up until the end of high school, sof or the first 18 years of my life, I ate no green things. I started incorporating Caesar salads, and that was a huge deal to eat greens, to give you a show of it. And then in college I got more into cooking and I would, you know, put vegetables and things in muffins, and I'd find ways to incorporate it and get myself to eat these things...{but} I was still like {mainly eating} eggs, cheese, grains..."beige" foods...{but} I still held on to this. I was like..."One day, you're gonna crave broccoli"...If you've dealt with picky eating, you understand when you have something and it's great and it just shifts your whole mindset, of..."I've been missing out on that for that long?" And over my first year into transitioning {to a} plant-based {diet} it was just eating more and more of these fruits and vegetables that, for so long, I hadn't been interested in eating...my body, I think, was so excited that I was finally giving it fruits and vegetables."
"It might seem strange, but it’s common for picky eaters to eat only white or beige foods and refuse most other colors of food. But, there’s a good reason why and ways to get them eating more colors of the rainbow..."
"For some picky eaters, color of food is a big deal! We often don’t think about food color. You might not even notice that your child is choosing only certain colors of foods, especially if they’re younger. But it’s something I teach my students to be on the look out for, because it can’t be ignored. Jade had notified the pattern, but her daughter, at the age of 7 had begun to verbalize it too. If your child is 3, they likely won’t tell you they don’t want to eat that ham because it’s pink, but that could very well be what’s going on! "
"Do All Picky Eaters Only Eat 1 Color of Food? Definitely not. In fact, it’s usually the more severe picky eaters that notice and select foods based on their color. An extreme picky eater typically eats less than 20-25 foods on a regular basis. They’ll also gag, tantrum, yell, or even throw up if you try to get them to eat, look at, touch, or tolerate a new food on their plate. Extreme picky eaters also won’t eventually eat a new food if you refuse to give them their favorites. Instead, they’ll go hungry and even make themselves sick...Eating only one or a few colors of food is another common trait of the extreme picky eater."
"What’s a Picky Eaters Favorite Food Color? There tends to be one color that most extreme picky eaters gravitate towards: white. It’s highly unlikely that a picky eater will choose green, red, blue, brown, or purple as the color of food that they’ll consistently eat. Instead, feeding therapists like myself consistently see children that only want foods that are shades of white or beige. At first, that may seem strange, but there’s actually a few really good reasons why…"
"3 Reasons Why Picky Eaters Love White and Beige Foods
#1: It looks non-threatening At one point in human history, children needed to have certain defensive mechanisms to survive in the wild. They needed to avoid eating anything poisonous. Green foods in particular are a signal in their child brain that the food might not be safe. Since white food is void of all color, it naturally looks very safe to them. All this decision making about food color happens on a sub-conscious level for most children.
#2: It’s the color of lots of kid’s favorite foods In today’s culture, A LOT of processed foods that picky eaters love happen to be white or beige. Maybe that’s not totally on purpose. These are some common white and beige foods that picky eaters tend to accept:
bread • crackers • mozzarella cheese sticks • chicken nuggets • popcorn • french fries • cheerios and other cereals • applesauce • peeled apple slices • white macaroni and cheese
Some picky eaters will also branch out into yellow or orang-ish foods like cheese curls, Cheez It’s, yellow cheese, carrots, and traditional mac and cheese. When you think about it, this makes sense, yellow is the most similar color to white.
#3: They trust the color When a child is struggling with picky eating, it’s for a reason. Eating may be difficult because of different textures of food, it could make their tummy hurt, or be too hard to chew. Kids usually don’t verbalize these difficulties, but with extreme picky eating, they almost certainly exist. Once your child is eating a few white, beige, or even yellow foods, they deem the food safe. Safe that the food won’t feel weird or hurt. Again, probably subconsciously, they identify the color as safe and will be most likely to eat other foods that are the same color, while refusing foods that are a different color."
February 2, 2018: Sam tweets, "Check out my sister on youtube!" [SA18a]
At some point in 2018, Annie visits Sam in San Francisco, while Sam has some friends over. One of Sam's friends asks Annie to play a song she'd written. Annie begins to play the song on her ukulele. While she is playing the song, Sam abruptly, wordlessly gets up and walks upstairs to his room [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "The next day, she {Annie} told him {Sam} 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?’”"
On May 25, 2018, Annie's Dad, Jerry Altman, has a heart attack while rowing on Creve Coeur Lake outside St. Louis, and dies at the hospital soon after, at age 67 [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "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."
Note: In my opinion, Annie and Sam tell stories about their dad's death that, to me, seem rather different and hard to reconcile --
Annie says:
{Jerry 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." [AA24c]
"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" [AA24d]
"I asked for money and resources to be given to our Dad numerous times before he died." [AA23q]
""One time I found a $500k watch at my oldest siblings’ place {Sam's 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" [AA24m]
It seems that, as of May 23, 2018, Sam also owned a ~$100K Philippe Patek Perpetual Calendar Ref. 1526 watch, which he posted a picture of to Reddit (on May 23, 2023):
The picture of the watch is not currently shown in the Reddit post. I found a link to it in the post's source code (using Inspect Element):
I also found the date & time of the post's creation in its source code:
(Note: as I noted on Twitter, I originally got this date wrong, accidentally mistaking the date and time at which a comment on the post was made for the date and time at which the post itself was made. Sorry about that.)
(32:28-33:49) "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." [SA23a]
Charles Johnson claims -- here, at around ~6:30 and ~13:18 -- that, after Jerry's death, Sam Altman "started doing a lot more drugs."
I am aware that Charles Johnson is not always a reliable source of information. But it seems that Charles Johnson had ties with Peter Thiel around that time (2018), so I think Johnson's claims that he repeatedly interacted with Sam in person and at his house are plausible.
I repeatedly asked (here, here, here, here, here, and here) Charles Johnson on Twitter to comment/elaborate on the claims that he made, but he didn't. (Some of my replies were getting marked as "spam" or "offensive" (which confused me, as I don't think they were "spam" or "offensive"), so that probably didn't help.)
After Jerry's death, Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie see Jerry's Will. They purposefully withhold it from Annie for a year. Annie only finds out about this a year later (in 2019) [AA24b].
Annie writes, "My Dad {Jerry} died in May 2018, and access to his Will was withheld from me by my mother {Connie} and three older siblings {Sam, Jack, Max} for an entire year." [AA24b]
She indicates that her Dad and her were very close, especially in the last few years before he died. {c.f. [AA18a] for more details.}
In [EW23a], Elizabeth Weil writes, "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."
Quotes from Annie's speech:
""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." [AA18a]
"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." [AA18a]
"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." [AA18a]
The week Jerry dies {in May 2018}, Annie has one of the worst panic attacks of her life: "The most recent panic attack, and perhaps darkest one I’ve experienced, happened the week he died." [AA18b].
C.f. [AA18b] for more details. It seems that Jerry's death may have been what triggered, or intensified, Annie's gradual process of recalling her repressed memories.
June 12, 2018: The first docket entry in the legal case relating to Jerry's death, Will, and Testament (my wording here may not be the most accurate, as I'm not an expert in probate court terminology).
Connie Francis Gibstine (Jerry's wife, and mother to Annie, Jack, Max, and Sam) is the independent personal representative. Annie Altman, Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman are heirs.
Peter Palumbo is Connie's attorney. Remember his name -- he shows up later (in an email from Sam to Annie in 2019 -- I'll cover this later in this timeline.)
See the images below.
I found the legal case relating to Jerry (full name: Jerold Donald Altman)'s death on the official Missouri courts government website that seem to corroborate this:
"The clerk, as soon as letters testamentary or of administration are issued, shall case to be published in some newspaper a notice of the appointment of the personal representative, in which shall be included a notice to creditors of the decedent to file their claims in the court or be forever barred. The notice shall be published once a week for four consecutive weeks. The clerk shall send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail to each heir and devisee whose name and address are shown on the application for letters or other records of the court, but any heir or devisee may waive notice to such person by filing a waiver in writing. The personal representative may, but is not required to, send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail or personal service to any creditor of the decedent whose claim has not been paid, allowed or disallowed as provided in section 473.403. Proof of publication of notice under this section and proof of mailing of notice shall be filed not later than ten days after completion of the publication."
In my (amateur) understanding, this means that Annie, being one of Jerry's heirs, should have received a notice, by mail, of the appointment of the personal representative (her mother Connie Gibstine) in July 2018?
But it seems to me that Annie didn't learn of her father's will until late 2019?
~August 2018: Connie kicks Annie off of her health insurance [AA24h].
"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" [AA24h]
Annie experiences "6 months of hacking into all her accounts" [AA23d] after starting her podcast.
"" [RE23a]
On 12-19-2019, Annie wrote: "In this calendar year I...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." [AA--g]
Annie also had "a third or more" [RE23a] of her podcast ratings get deleted within a "few months" [RE23a] of starting her podcast. "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." [RE23a]
At some point (before Annie begins sex work): Annie experiences shadowbanning on her social media accounts.
From [AA--h]:
"Almost all of my social media accounts have been/are shadowbanned...OpenAI would be tagged here also if they had a account.
{This shadowbanning} 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...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."
In ~September 2018, Annie meets with a yoga teacher named Joe [AA18b] to record a podcast episode.
Joe asks Annie, "what is your earliest memory?". Annie immediately responds, "'probably a panic attack'" [AA18b].
Then, as Annie writes, "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?”" [AA18b]
The general idea (to me) is that Annie starts to process/realize that a panic attack is not her earliest memory. c.f. 2 bullet points below.
In ~October 2018, Annie attends a sound bath at a yoga studio: "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." [AA18b]
Reading [AA18b] in its entirety makes the connections a bit more clear here. The piece basically details Annie's gradual process, from the time of her Dad's death in May 2018, to the date of [AA18b]'s publication on November 8, 2018, of remembering/realizing that a panic attack is not her earliest memory. {Presumably, her earliest memory is her memory of being (sexually) abused by Sam, but it takes Annie a bit to fully process this memory, because it's so traumatic, and her brain repressed the memory as a defense mechanism when she was 4 years old.}
To me, if you look through Annie's writings over time, in chronological order, they seem to reflect a gradual process of Annie remembering that Sam sexually abused her when she was 4. Here is a sample of her writings, in which you can see how her writing changes over the course of nearly 6 years. To me, the progression encapsulates a gradual process of remembering.
"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."
The show begins with Annie providing an introduction to the her podcast and some thoughts about honesty and truth, and then thaking her brothers for coming on her podcast. Her brothers call her "Cannie." ("Cannie", short for "Trash Can" [AA24o], is their nickname for her.)
Annie: "Hello. My name is Annie Altman, and I've spent my life on a quest for true shit. Welcome to Episode 5 of Podcastukkah. So far, I've learned that 'the truth hurts' is some true shit, and there is no ultimate true shit, because my truth is different from someone else's truth, and my truth now is different from my truth a year ago. Some true shit that has held up over time: one, be honest, the truth will come out eventually, and lying only complicates things. Two, the truth is simple, and lies are complicated. Three, be kind, and treat people how you want to be treated. If you are uninterested in someone else imposing their true shit on to you, do your best to be mindful about imposing your true shit onto others. This show is basically an opportunity for me to shoot the shit about things I want to shoot the shit about with people I want to shoot the shit with. Thanks for listening to me practice "human"-ing. In this episode, I'll be discussing projection with all three of my older brothers. Sam, Max, and Jack Altman, I'm very grateful and privileged that you were all willing to take some time during this Thanksgiving holiday to circle around a microphone and record some thoughts on projection. Thank you all for coming."
Sam: "Thanks for having us on, Cannie."
Jack: "Thrilled to be here, Cannie."
...
Note: in my opinion, there's sort of a pattern throughout the episode: Annie brings up something she wants to talk about, often related to projection, feelings, or working through challenging emotions; her brothers cut her off or subtly alter the topic of conversation away from what Annie originally brought up, instead discusing topics that are...less sensitive, basically. It's sort of hard to describe. I'd recommend listening to the episode yourself - I think you'll sort of see what I'm talking about. (This is just my interpretaiton, of course, You may disagree, and that's understandable.)
During the episode, Annie starts to talk about projection (in psychology), as well as how people are "wired to remember painful experiences." Sam interjects and cuts her off, moving the topic of conversation away from "remembering painful experiences" to "hypocrisy", and then detours the topic of conversation even further away from projection & memory to "giving feedback {at work}." Mutliple times, Annie starts to return to the topic of projection; each time, the Altman brothers interject and start talking about "feedback", specifically in work-related contexts. (Note: perhaps this interpretation of mine is biased. This was the impression I got after listening to the podcast, specifically from 24:30 -- 39:05 (the end of the podcast.) As always, I've linked the source material, and you can go listen yourself and see what you think.)
Annie (24:30): "...in some ways, we're wired to remember painful experiences so that we do learn from them...to remember negativity, and remember those things --"
Sam (interjecting) (24:55): " -- more than that, I think one thing we're particularly wired for, I don't know why, is to not like hypocrisy. That's like a very deep thing..."
In [EW23a], Elizabeth Weil writes, "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]
I also think it's worth noting that, at this point in time (December 7, 2018), Sam, Jack, and Max (and Connie) have seen Jerry's Will, and are aware that it stipulates an inheritance for Annie, but are purposefully withholding this information from Annie [AA24b].
Again: as I understand it, at this point in time, Annie still has not yet fully remembered the abuse she experienced Sam (and her other brothers) during her childhood. This is why she is ok with doing this podcast episode with Sam and her other brothers.
"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."
~March 2019: Sam Altman -- at the time, president of Y Combinator -- is asked to resign by the firm's leaders, as well as by Paul Graham and (especially) his wife Jessica Livingston. [WSJ23a] Sam leaves Y Combinator in March 2019. See [WSJ23a] for details.
In ~summer 2019, about a year after the death of her Dad (Jerry), Annie is notified about being the primary beneficiary of her Dad's 401K. [AA23m, AA24a, AA24b]
In light of these situational factors, Annie makes a plan to quit her job for 6 months [AA--c] to focus on her health, expecting that she'd receive money that Jerry had left for her, which would cover her financial needs during that time. She notifies her relatives of this plan,
Updates as of November 2024: I've added in a substantial amount of new information that Annie and other sources have provided since the day that I originally made this post (October 7, 2023.) I added some in-text citations so it's easier to see how I've constructed the Timeline below. I also changed my Twitter username for reasons I provided here. If you want to see what this post looked like before I made these updates, it's available here on the Internet Archive.
Content warning: Sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, suicidal ideation, severe mental illnesses/trauma, graphic (sexual) language.
This post aims to aggregate a collection of statements made by Annie Altman, the (lesser-known) younger sister of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
In these statements, Annie asserts that she has suffered various severe forms of abuse from Sam Altman throughout her life, including being sexually abused by him as a child. She also states that she has experienced abuse from her other brother Jack Altman, though to a lesser extent.
Annie has stated that the forms of abuse she's endured include sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, technological (shadowbanning, hacking), pharmacological (forced Zoloft), and psychological abuse.
I do not attempt to speak for Annie; rather, my goal is to provide an objective and unbiased aggregation of this situation, and the claims Annie has made.
I have made this post because I think that it may be important to be aware of the existence of the claims that Annie has made about Sam, given his strong influence over the development and alignment of increasingly powerful AI models. I have also made this post because I think that Annie's claims are not covered well elsewhere - at least, at the time of this post's writing.
Disclaimer: I have tried my best to assemble all relevant information I could find related to this (extremely serious) topic, but this is likely not a complete collection of information regarding the Sam Altman's alleged abuse of Annie Altman.
An outline of this post
Note: I am awe that this post is rather long. However, most of the content is summarized in the Timeline section (~20 minute read.)
The Timeline section gives my attempt at a timeline detailing Annie's claims in chronological order. It provides a summary of most the information in the post. After the Timeline section, I then provide other sources & references, and excerpts from them, which I used to create the Timeline.
Here is an outline o the post:
Timeline
Note
This post provides my understanding of Annie's claims, and the situation. It's definitely possible that I've (unintentionally) gotten things wrong, misinterpreted things, or been biased in how I've covered this situation, despite my best efforts not to be.
Unlike other journalists & reporters who've covered Annie's allegations, I've never personally met or interviewed Sam, Annie, or any of their family in-person. Everything in this post is just information that I found on the Internet.
I've used citations & links heavily throughout the post, in an attempt to make it clear how I've come to my current understanding. By all means, go look at the source material and references yourself, and form your own understanding.
In an attempt to make this post clearer and easier to read, I've used "collapsible" sections, like this one.
You can click on the little ▶ triangle icon at the top-left of each collapsible section to un-collapse it, and reveal its hidden content. You can then click the ▼ icon again to re-collapse the section, and hide its content.
Note: there is still important information in many of the "dropdown" parts. A few of them are empty, and a few contain less-important information, but most actually do have additional information that you should read.
In other words -- don't misread this as "the information in the dropdown sections is redundant/irrelevant."
You should still read the information in all of the dropdown sections.
I've also added some in-text citations.
I've purposefully aired on the side of potentially adding a bit "too much" detail in this timeline, as I'd rather do that than accidentally leave out information in a way that makes it hard to understand other events in the timeline.
There are various events in the timeline that, when you first read them, may seem "unnecessary" or "not relevant." But, generally, I include things in the timeline for a reason. Often, in this timeline, earlier events sort of "set up" events that follow years later. You often need to understand various events that occur earlier on in the timeline before you can understand various events that come later.
Throughout this post, I've bolded various segments that I feel are particularly important or relevant.
Timeline
April 22, 1985: Sam Altman is born, to parents Connie Gibstine (mother) and Jerry Altman (father.)
1987: Max Altman is born.
1989: Jack Altman is born.
1994: Annie Altman is born.
Beginning when Annie is a baby [AA24n] -- i.e. beginning somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997 -- Annie repeatedly experiences various forms of abuse from her biological siblings. That is, from her 3 brothers: Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman. It seems that most of the abuse that Annie has experienced from her 3 brothers has come from Sam.
Somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997, (Annie's brothers, I presume?) play "dwarf tossing" with Annie when she is a baby [AA24n]. Annie's grandmother witnesses this, and condemns it. [AA24n]
~1996: Sam and Jack's grandmother gets each of them some stock in a company related to something they like. Sam is given stock in Apple, given his interest in computers. Jack is given stock in Applebee's, given that he was, as he puts it, "heavier as a child, as {Sam} like{s} to point out" [YC16a].
Jack was a "very tired kid."
~August 1997: Sam, age 12, begins his time at the John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri, staring 7'th grade.
In ~1998 or 1999, when Annie Altman is 4 years old and Sam Altman is 13 years old, Sam sexually abuses Annie [AA23a, AA--f] -- repeated molestation [AA23w] and touching her in private areas. [AA23x]
~1998-1999: Annie's 4-year-old mind represses her memories of these abuses [AA18b, AA23k, EW23a].
For the next ~20 years (~1998-2018) Annie's mind continues to repress her full memories of being abused. However, throughout those 20 years, Annie does recall bits and pieces of her memories of being sexually abused. These partial-memories confuse and disturb Annie, and she doesn't fully understand them when they recur to her. Crucially, Annie also doesn't remember that it was Sam who sexually abused her.
Also, over the next 20 years (~1998-2018), Annie experiences a variety of mental health issues, eating disorders, and other disturbing experiences (e.g. projectile vomiting during consensual sex), all caused by the abuse she experienced at a young age.
However, beginning in 2018, a sort of "perfect storm" of events unfold that cause Annie to gradually start recalling her full memories of being abused. This gradual process of Annie recalling her full memories of abuse occurs from ~2018-2021. I'll detail these events later on in this timeline.
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Note: when I first learned of Annie's story, I was confused by, and didn't fully understand, some of her symptoms. I've since learned more about common symptoms in people who experienced sexual abuse as a child.
Annie displays many of these symptoms, including:
- panic attacks beginning at a young age
- waking up in the middle of the night needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety
- suicidal ideation beginning at age 5-6
- "rationalizing away" and/or not understanding partial flashbacks (to the sexual abuse she experienced) that occurred earlier in her life
- PTSD
- developing eating disorders and body image problems from a young age
- developing many mental illnesses (including suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, OCD, and more) from a young age
- (initial) repression of the (full) memories of the abuse (as an automatic trauma response in the brain)
- many more symptoms
Some sources that helped me understand:
• Child Sexual Abuse -- US Department of Veterans Affairs
• The Body Keeps the Score -- by Bessel Van Der Kolk
• My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse -- Tim Ferriss
• What to Do if You Have PTSD From Being Molested as a Child -- sexualabuselawfirm.com
From saprea.org, (Saprea seems to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that "exists to liberate individuals and society from child sexual abuse and its lasting impacts":
• The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: How Does Trauma Affect the Brain and Body? -- saprea.org
• Common Symptoms {in people who experienced sexual abuse as a child}: Flashbacks
• Common Symptoms: Difficult Relationship with Body
• Common Symptoms: Panic Attacks
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown section for more details.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At age 5 (~1999), Annie tells her mother, Connie Altman, that she wants to end her own life and that she was "touched by older siblings", and Connie "decided to instead protect her sons and demand to receive therapy and chores only from her female child." [AA24f]. In particular, (it seems) Connie tells Annie to keep the sexual assault a secret [AA23m].
"At age 5 {~1999}, {Annie} began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6 {~2000}, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word" [EW23a].
~2001 (Annie: age ~7): Annie begins to criticize her appearance. She continues to do so for the next 18 years.
~2001: At age 16, Sam comes out to his parents as gay. [TF16a]
Throughout her childhood (and the rest of her life), Annie does not have a complete memory of the sexual abuse she experienced in her early childhood.
However, she experiences a variety of mental and physical symptoms common among those who have experienced sexual abuse in early childhood.
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown for details.)
From ~August 2006 to June 2012, Annie attends grades 7-12 at the John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri (the same school that Sam attended [AA23m].)
In 2005, Sam begins working on his startup, "Loopt" (formerly named "Radiate"). During his sophomore year at Standford (also in 2005), Sam meets Paul Graham. Paul Graham is quite impressed by Sam, and Loopt is accepted into Y Combinator's first cohort.
Graham spoke highly of Sam:
-- October 2006: "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.""
-- August 2008: "When we predict good outcomes for startups, the qualities that come up in the supporting arguments are toughness, adaptability, determination. Which means to the extent we're correct, those are the qualities you need to win. Investors know this, at least unconsciously. The reason they like it when you don't need them is not simply that they like what they can't have, but because that quality is what makes founders succeed. Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you."
-- April 2009: "I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."
During Sam's time at Loopt, a group of senior Loopt employees "twice urged board members to fire him as CEO over what they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior...Senior executives {at Loopt} 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." [WSJ23a]
Sam also helps orchestrate an elaborate, multi-year plan to seize control of Reddit, by slowly diluting the ownership Condé Naste (who'd acquired it) until Reddit was effectively owned, once again, by its original founders, who'd also been part of Y Combinator's first cohort. (The plan succeeded.)
~2007: At age 13, Annie starts using Zoloft to help with symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), anxiety, and depression. [AA19b].
~2009: At age 15, Annie starts using birth control pills. [AA19b].
In ~September 2012, Annie begins college at Tufts University, intending to complete a pre-medical track. [AA15a]
Years, later, Annie wrote the following about her time in college (i.e. ~2012-2016):
On 10-15-2023, Annie wrote: "I had only fuzzy memories of sexual abuse until I went no contact {with Sam and her other relatives}, 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." [AA23u]
On 3-27-2024, Annie wrote: "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." [AA24b]
2012: Sam sells Loopt to Green Dot $43.4 million, coming away with $5 million himself. Sam uses that $5 million, along with money provided by Peter Thiel, to launch his own venture fund, Hydrazine Capital, with his brother Jack Altman. [EW23a]
"{Sam} also took a year off, read a stack of books, traveled, played video games, and, “like a total tech-bro meme,” he said, “was like, I’m gonna go to an ashram for a while, and it changed my life. I’m sure I’m still anxious and stressed in a lot of ways, but my perception of it is that I feel very relaxed and happy and calm."" [EW23a]
From a recent (September 24, 2024) podcast he did, it seems that Sam did a "weekend-long retreat in Mexico" where he did psychedelics, and that this retreat & the psychedelics he took significantly changed his inner state, helping him become more calm (he was more anxious before).
On March 30, 2015, Annie submits an appeal letter [AA15a] to a Dean at Tufts University asking if Tufts will allow her to graduate early at the end of the semester {which would have been May 17, 2015} since, by that time, Annie would have completed all of her graduation requirements, except for Tufts University's "residency requirement."
Annie's request to graduate early (in 6 semesters) is denied.
Annie still ends up finishing college early - just in 7 semesters [EW23a], rather than 6. She graduates with a degree in Biopsychology (in ~2016).
Upon graduating, Annie is extremely depressed [EW23a], and she does not pursue medical school [AA19b] as she'd initially intended to [AA15a].
In Annie's own words: "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.e. her blog on Medium.}" [AA19b].
From [EW23a]: "{Annie} left college early...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."
From [BB24d]: "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.""
At some point before October 3, 2016 [TF16a] - Jerry and Connie get a martial separation [AA23r, EW23a] -- not a divorce, just a separation [AA23r].
Thus, legally, they remain married, even though they are separated [AA23r.]
(As with other events in this timeline, there's a reason I'm including this. Later on, this enables Connie to block Annie from receiving the funds her deceased father left to her.)
October 3, 2016: "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" [TF16a] is published in the New Yorker. The author, Tad Friend, includes anecdotes from his time spent observing Sam's day-to-day activities, as well as quotes from Sam, his brothers, and their mother (Connie.)
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."
~2017: At age 22, just before her 23rd birthday, Annie stops taking birth control pills. Around this same time, she also finishes tapering off of Zoloft. She also drastically alters her diet. [AA19b]
As a result, Annie loses her period for a year. [AA19b]
November 29, 2017: Sam returns to John Burroughs School, where he speaks to students about "development of startups and AI...and our collective responsibility to make sure they benefit everyone." [JBS17a]
January 2018: Jerry sends Annie a text, part of which reads, "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." [AA18a]
February 1, 2018: Annie posts "My journey from beige foods" on Youtube.
Here is an article that details and explains the preference for "beige foods" in picky eaters (especially as children): "Why Picky Eaters Are Fixated on White and Beige Foods Only!" by Alisha Grogan (MOT, OTR/L) on yourkidstable.com
At one point in human history, children needed to have certain defensive mechanisms to survive in the wild. They needed to avoid eating anything poisonous. Green foods in particular are a signal in their child brain that the food might not be safe. Since white food is void of all color, it naturally looks very safe to them. All this decision making about food color happens on a sub-conscious level for most children.
In today’s culture, A LOT of processed foods that picky eaters love happen to be white or beige. Maybe that’s not totally on purpose. These are some common white and beige foods that picky eaters tend to accept:
When a child is struggling with picky eating, it’s for a reason. Eating may be difficult because of different textures of food, it could make their tummy hurt, or be too hard to chew. Kids usually don’t verbalize these difficulties, but with extreme picky eating, they almost certainly exist. Once your child is eating a few white, beige, or even yellow foods, they deem the food safe. Safe that the food won’t feel weird or hurt. Again, probably subconsciously, they identify the color as safe and will be most likely to eat other foods that are the same color, while refusing foods that are a different color."
February 2, 2018: Sam tweets, "Check out my sister on youtube!" [SA18a]
At some point in 2018, Annie visits Sam in San Francisco, while Sam has some friends over. One of Sam's friends asks Annie to play a song she'd written. Annie begins to play the song on her ukulele. While she is playing the song, Sam abruptly, wordlessly gets up and walks upstairs to his room [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "The next day, she {Annie} told him {Sam} 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?’”"
On May 25, 2018, Annie's Dad, Jerry Altman, has a heart attack while rowing on Creve Coeur Lake outside St. Louis, and dies at the hospital soon after, at age 67 [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "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."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: In my opinion, Annie and Sam tell stories about their dad's death that, to me, seem rather different and hard to reconcile --
Annie says:
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" [AA24m]
Sam's wristwatches:
Sam can be seen wearing {what seems likely to be} his Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 in "WIRED25: Sebastian Thrun & Sam Altman Talk Flying Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence", published 10/16/2018:
Sam says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charles Johnson claims -- here, at around ~6:30 and ~13:18 -- that, after Jerry's death, Sam Altman "started doing a lot more drugs."
I am aware that Charles Johnson is not always a reliable source of information. But it seems that Charles Johnson had ties with Peter Thiel around that time (2018), so I think Johnson's claims that he repeatedly interacted with Sam in person and at his house are plausible.
I repeatedly asked (here, here, here, here, here, and here) Charles Johnson on Twitter to comment/elaborate on the claims that he made, but he didn't. (Some of my replies were getting marked as "spam" or "offensive" (which confused me, as I don't think they were "spam" or "offensive"), so that probably didn't help.)
After Jerry's death, Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie see Jerry's Will. They purposefully withhold it from Annie for a year. Annie only finds out about this a year later (in 2019) [AA24b].
On May 28, 2018, Annie gives a speech at her Dad's funeral (which she publishes online a year later [AA18a].)
The week Jerry dies {in May 2018}, Annie has one of the worst panic attacks of her life: "The most recent panic attack, and perhaps darkest one I’ve experienced, happened the week he died." [AA18b].
June 12, 2018: The first docket entry in the legal case relating to Jerry's death, Will, and Testament (my wording here may not be the most accurate, as I'm not an expert in probate court terminology).
Connie Francis Gibstine (Jerry's wife, and mother to Annie, Jack, Max, and Sam) is the independent personal representative. Annie Altman, Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman are heirs.
Peter Palumbo is Connie's attorney. Remember his name -- he shows up later (in an email from Sam to Annie in 2019 -- I'll cover this later in this timeline.)
See the images below.
July 9, 2018 -- the legal case regarding Jerry's estate and Will shows a "Proof of Mailing."
From section 473.033. Notice of letters — duty of clerk — publication — form. of Chapter 473 Probate Code -- Administration of Decedents' Estates of the Revised Statues of Missouri (bolding is my own):
"The clerk, as soon as letters testamentary or of administration are issued, shall case to be published in some newspaper a notice of the appointment of the personal representative, in which shall be included a notice to creditors of the decedent to file their claims in the court or be forever barred. The notice shall be published once a week for four consecutive weeks. The clerk shall send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail to each heir and devisee whose name and address are shown on the application for letters or other records of the court, but any heir or devisee may waive notice to such person by filing a waiver in writing. The personal representative may, but is not required to, send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail or personal service to any creditor of the decedent whose claim has not been paid, allowed or disallowed as provided in section 473.403. Proof of publication of notice under this section and proof of mailing of notice shall be filed not later than ten days after completion of the publication."
In my (amateur) understanding, this means that Annie, being one of Jerry's heirs, should have received a notice, by mail, of the appointment of the personal representative (her mother Connie Gibstine) in July 2018?
But it seems to me that Annie didn't learn of her father's will until late 2019?
~August 2018: Connie kicks Annie off of her health insurance [AA24h].
On August 14, 2018, Annie starts a podcast, the All Humans Are Human podcast.
Annie experiences "6 months of hacking into all her accounts" [AA23d] after starting her podcast.
"" [RE23a]
On 12-19-2019, Annie wrote: "In this calendar year I...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." [AA--g]
Annie also had "a third or more" [RE23a] of her podcast ratings get deleted within a "few months" [RE23a] of starting her podcast. "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." [RE23a]
At some point (before Annie begins sex work): Annie experiences shadowbanning on her social media accounts.
From [AA--h]:
"Almost all of my social media accounts have been/are shadowbanned...OpenAI would be tagged here also if they had a account.
{This shadowbanning} 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...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."
In ~September 2018, Annie meets with a yoga teacher named Joe [AA18b] to record a podcast episode.
Joe asks Annie, "what is your earliest memory?". Annie immediately responds, "'probably a panic attack'" [AA18b].
Then, as Annie writes, "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?”" [AA18b]
In ~October 2018, Annie attends a sound bath at a yoga studio: "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." [AA18b]
On November 8, 2018, Annie publishes "Reclaiming my memories" [AA18b] on her blog (see dropdown):
On December 7, 2018, Annie records and publishes an episode of her podcast featuring Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman, titled 21. Podcastukkah #5: Feedback is feedback with Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman. [AA18c].
The show begins with Annie providing an introduction to the her podcast and some thoughts about honesty and truth, and then thaking her brothers for coming on her podcast. Her brothers call her "Cannie." ("Cannie", short for "Trash Can" [AA24o], is their nickname for her.)
Annie: "Hello. My name is Annie Altman, and I've spent my life on a quest for true shit. Welcome to Episode 5 of Podcastukkah. So far, I've learned that 'the truth hurts' is some true shit, and there is no ultimate true shit, because my truth is different from someone else's truth, and my truth now is different from my truth a year ago. Some true shit that has held up over time: one, be honest, the truth will come out eventually, and lying only complicates things. Two, the truth is simple, and lies are complicated. Three, be kind, and treat people how you want to be treated. If you are uninterested in someone else imposing their true shit on to you, do your best to be mindful about imposing your true shit onto others. This show is basically an opportunity for me to shoot the shit about things I want to shoot the shit about with people I want to shoot the shit with. Thanks for listening to me practice "human"-ing. In this episode, I'll be discussing projection with all three of my older brothers. Sam, Max, and Jack Altman, I'm very grateful and privileged that you were all willing to take some time during this Thanksgiving holiday to circle around a microphone and record some thoughts on projection. Thank you all for coming."
Sam: "Thanks for having us on, Cannie."
Jack: "Thrilled to be here, Cannie."
...
Note: in my opinion, there's sort of a pattern throughout the episode: Annie brings up something she wants to talk about, often related to projection, feelings, or working through challenging emotions; her brothers cut her off or subtly alter the topic of conversation away from what Annie originally brought up, instead discusing topics that are...less sensitive, basically. It's sort of hard to describe. I'd recommend listening to the episode yourself - I think you'll sort of see what I'm talking about. (This is just my interpretaiton, of course, You may disagree, and that's understandable.)
During the episode, Annie starts to talk about projection (in psychology), as well as how people are "wired to remember painful experiences." Sam interjects and cuts her off, moving the topic of conversation away from "remembering painful experiences" to "hypocrisy", and then detours the topic of conversation even further away from projection & memory to "giving feedback {at work}." Mutliple times, Annie starts to return to the topic of projection; each time, the Altman brothers interject and start talking about "feedback", specifically in work-related contexts. (Note: perhaps this interpretation of mine is biased. This was the impression I got after listening to the podcast, specifically from 24:30 -- 39:05 (the end of the podcast.) As always, I've linked the source material, and you can go listen yourself and see what you think.)
Annie (24:30): "...in some ways, we're wired to remember painful experiences so that we do learn from them...to remember negativity, and remember those things --"
Sam (interjecting) (24:55): " -- more than that, I think one thing we're particularly wired for, I don't know why, is to not like hypocrisy. That's like a very deep thing..."
In [EW23a], Elizabeth Weil writes, "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]
I also think it's worth noting that, at this point in time (December 7, 2018), Sam, Jack, and Max (and Connie) have seen Jerry's Will, and are aware that it stipulates an inheritance for Annie, but are purposefully withholding this information from Annie [AA24b].
February 21, 2019: Annie publishes [AA19b] "Period lost, period found" on her blog.
~March 2019: Sam Altman -- at the time, president of Y Combinator -- is asked to resign by the firm's leaders, as well as by Paul Graham and (especially) his wife Jessica Livingston. [WSJ23a] Sam leaves Y Combinator in March 2019. See [WSJ23a] for details.
March 6, 2019: Annie publishes "18 reasons I spent 18 years criticizing my appearance" [AA19c] on her blog.
By ~May 2019 [EW23a], Annie has become sick with a combination of illnesses that make it hard for her to work [AA24b, AA23k, AA--f, AA--g, AA23m, EW23a, AA23r, AA24b].
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown for details.)
In ~summer 2019, about a year after the death of her Dad (Jerry), Annie is notified about being the primary beneficiary of her Dad's 401K. [AA23m, AA24a, AA24b]
In light of these situational factors, Annie makes a plan to quit her job for 6 months [AA--c] to focus on her health, expecting that she'd receive money that Jerry had left for her, which would cover her financial needs during that time. She notifies her relatives of this plan,