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It's time for Sam Altman to pass on the torch
Samir Desai
April 23, 2025
I recently saw this great take on Sam Altman in the wake of the ChatGPT 4.5 flop:
Here's my hot take regarding OpenAl's flop with 4.5:
First, they didn't want to lose the spotlight. Plain and simple, 4.5 was clearly half baked and with Grok and Sonnet coming out, Sam Altman didn't want to be seen flatfooted.
Only problem is it backfired.
Now, here's my deeper analysis:
Ilya left OpenAl in May 2024, but was part of the ouster attempt in November 2023. All the progress that OpenAl has made since then was primarily the momentum championed by Ilya. In other words, Q* and Strawberry and all that were llya, and Sam made the miscalculation that he could continue research at the previous pace without Ilya. But then Mira and a ton of other researchers jumped ship because of the profit maximizing strategy that Sam took, throwing caution to the wind. I mean, OpenAl reneged on literally every single one of their founding principles. For profit, closed source, reduced focus on safety.
"We don't have enough GPUs"
That could be part of it. But also consider that Sam's pedigree from Y Combinator is rapid startup, rapid exit. OpenAl is no longer in the startup phase, they are in the hypergrowth and sustaining growth phase. Sam is completely out of his depth with respect to the phase of the business. Sam Altman has never run, grown, or scaled a company as large as OpenAl. This is why they have a scattered product strategy and focus more on hype than substance lately.
It's actually pretty common for companies around the size of OpenAl to have a total change of leadership. This is often when the exit would happen. The founding team, having built something that is clearly resonating, but not yet profitable, would sell out to a more mature, experienced management team who then bring the product strategy and margins to the next level.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sam has no experience actually making a company profitable.
And it got me thinking:
(A) Could Sam’s position ever be not secure?
(B) If he ever decides to leave, who would be the right CEO for him and for the company?
On the topic of (A) after what happened in 2023, my thinking is there is absolutely no way Sam is no longer CEO unless it's on his own terms. He cannot and will not be pushed out. Who leads OpenAI is completely up to Sam.
But on (B) I think there's a shot that he recognizes what he's good at and that to take the company to the next level and realize the full value of his equity, he needs to stand aside.
But he's not going to stand aside for just anyone. He needs that person to have a specific and special set of skills and experience:
Understands R&D-led companies with developer-led GTM, enterprise sales and API-driven business models
Well respected in startup ecosystem with connections to Y Combinator
Seen company growth from idea stage to thousands of employees
Driven a founder-led business to IPO and beyond
Successfully navigated complexity of dealing with multiple global stakeholders and investors
Comfortable with build/buy/partner approach to company building with a history of successful acquisitions and partnerships
Who is a person that has all of these characteristics and happens to available to jump into this multi-billion dollar company? Who could possibly be ready for all that OpenAI requires?
That person is Jeff Lawson, former co-founder and CEO of Twilio.
He fits every quality, characteristic and life experience necessary to lead OpenAI to its next stage. He's the person that should take on the role. Sam - you are so great at building companies and you need to stay at OpenAI to build. Carve out a President role and lead OpenAI's moonshot factory. The future is already here because of you so help lead OpenAI to what's next.
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