The ChatGPT co-founder and current CEO of OpenAI is still looking forward and open to the past. He was fired and quickly reappointed by the board of directors nearly a year ago, citing Altman's "inability to be forthright."

From CEO to fired

In an episode of the Life in Seven Songs podcast, Altman shared that being abruptly fired "was a terrifying and traumatic thing, especially when it happened so publicly."

The podcast follows an optimistic post Altman made on his personal blog titled "The Intelligence Age," in which he hoped that AI would transform society in the next few decades, with "incredible feats like fixing the climate, discovering everything related to physics" becoming "commonplace."

Despite being one of the faces of efforts to change the future through AI, Altman's path to leadership hasn't always been smooth, or certain.

Days after he was fired 10 months ago, 95% of OpenAI’s employees signed a letter threatening to quit if Altman wasn’t rehired. Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has offered Altman a position leading an advanced AI research group at Microsoft.

Altman returned as CEO of OpenAI less than a week after being fired. “And I didn’t have time, because there was so much going on. I didn’t have time to deal with being fired or recover from it,” Altman said on the podcast. “The first few months were just chaos. It took a lot out of me.”

Valuable lessons from being fired

When Altman returns to the office, he often sees reminders of that dramatic day, from old paperwork to attorney notes. But he has learned a few positive lessons from the experience of being fired that not everyone realizes.

“I learned a lot about gratitude,” Altman says.

“There is an immense sense of gratitude for the people around me and what I get to do.

I really value that sense of responsibility, that you don't turn your back on something you've committed to, no matter how hard it is, if it's something you feel is important. And that's when I really grew up. I'm proud of that."

Altman also shared on the podcast that he keeps an axe — a prehistoric stone tool — in his office as a reminder of humanity's journey. "I look at the axe all the time," he said.

In “The Intelligence Age,” Altman writes that technology has taken humanity from the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age, and then to the Industrial Age. He argues that we could achieve superintelligence, or AI that is smarter than the brightest human minds, in just “a few thousand days.” He calls it “the most important event in all of history so far.”

OpenAI is currently valued at $86 billion. The company is in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion, at a valuation of $150 billion, according to Bloomberg .

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