ref/sam-altman sources --list

Sources

What this site stands on — primary documents first, serious reporting second, estimates flagged as estimates.

Primary sources

• Altman’s blog (samaltman.com) — essays “The Merge” (2017), “How to Be Successful” (Jan 2019), “Moore’s Law for Everything” (16 Mar 2021), “The Intelligence Age” (23 Sep 2024), “Reflections” (6 Jan 2025). Used for Key Ideas and Sayings.
• OpenAI charter and announcements — the capped-profit structure (Mar 2019), Microsoft partnerships (Jul 2019, Jan 2023), model releases (GPT-3 Jun 2020; ChatGPT 30 Nov 2022; GPT-4 Mar 2023). Used across OpenAI founding, The GPT Era, The Capped-Profit Bet.
• U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing transcript (16 May 2023) — Altman’s testimony on AI oversight. Used for Senate Testimony and Sayings.
• OpenAI board statement (17 Nov 2023) and WilmerHale independent review summary (Mar 2024) — the two most authoritative documents on the board crisis. Used for The Board Crisis.
• Green Dot Corporation disclosures (2012) — Loopt acquisition price ($43.4M). Used for Loopt.
• Tools for Humanity / Worldcoin whitepapers and privacy policies — the company’s own claims about Orb data handling. Used for Worldcoin, alongside regulators’ actions.

Reporting

• The New Yorker profile (2016), New York Magazine (2023), The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Verge, TechCrunch — biographical detail, the 2023 crisis timeline, Worldcoin coverage, energy investments.
• Helen Toner’s public writing on the board’s reasoning (2024) — one perspective on the crisis, attributed as such.
• UBS analysis (Feb 2023) on ChatGPT adoption — flagged as an estimate, not an audited figure.

Images — provenance

See the image captions for credits and context. Illustrated character art is a dramatization.

What this site does not rely on

• Anonymous gossip and unsourced social-media claims.
• Wealth-tracker figures as anything more than estimates.
• The subject’s or critics’ characterizations as unattributed fact.

Source notes

• Source list compiled 2026-09-26. Specific citations appear on each page’s Source notes.
• Readers checking a claim should start from the page’s Source notes, then Methodology.