New York: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is set to make a fortune when Reddit goes public, thanks to his early and consistent investments in the online forum company since 2014. According to the company’s prospectus, Altman has 9.2% of the voting power before Reddit’s IPO.
Altman, who is reportedly looking to raise trillions for chip development that could support OpenAI’s AI computing needs, backed by Microsoft, has a track record of investing in many startups. Some of his successful bets include Asana, which went public on the NYSE in 2020, and Instacart, which joined Nasdaq in September.
Reddit current valuation is estimated at around $804 million, according to Reuters. So the former CEO is poised to make almost $362 million.
Altman was the president of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator, before he launched OpenAI in 2015, giving him access to many small companies.
Altman led Reddit’s Series B round of $50 million in 2014, after being a daily user of the service for nine years, as he wrote in a blog post.
“Reddit is an example of something that started out looking like a silly toy for wasting time and has become something very interesting,” he wrote.
“It’s been an important community for me over the years—I can find like-minded people that I can’t always find in the real world.”
