'How many hours does Sam Altman sit in traffic?' ChatGPT-maker responds to criticism for his push to end remote work

Sam Altman recently made some strong statements against the work-from-home (WFH) culture. The ChatGPT-maker and OpenAI CEO talked about the lost potential due to remote work. He went on to call it one of 'tech industry's worst mistakes'. However, his comments did not fare well with some Twitter users. One particular comment questioned Altman's own life and work. In response to her tweet, Altman clarified that he still thinks 'hybrid is the best'. 

The woman questioned Altman saying, "How many hours does Sam Altman sit in traffic every day? This is easy for investors and CEOs to say. Harder for employees, especially moms with young kids." 

Altman responded to her tweet by saying, "I think hybrid is the best!". 

i think hybrid is the best!

— Sam Altman (@sama) May 7, 2023

Sam Altman spoke about the challenges of remote work during a fintech session organized by Stripe. During the session, Altman said that the remote work model creates confusion and that it's still too early for people to work fully remote since we don't have the technology needed for it. He went on to describe remote work as an experiment and a mistake, particularly for startups, as it could lead to a loss of creativity.

He said, "I think definitely one of tech industry's worst mistakes in a long time was that everybody (thought they) could go full remote forever, and startups didn't need to be together. There was going to be no loss of creativity. I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough that people can be full remote forever, particularly on startups."

Altman also expressed his preference for employees to work from the office. In a tweet, he said that companies who rushed into full remote work permanently made a big mistake, and the cracks are beginning to show. However, he added that OpenAI supports remote work and has some of their best people working remotely.

Discussing the future of AI, Altman emphasized the importance of treating the technology with "extreme seriousness" since it may have an "existential risk" attached to it.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI," recently resigned from Google and spoke about the potential dangers of AI. He explained that he left Google so that he could talk freely about the risks without having Google attached to it. Hinton sounded the alarm on AI claiming that it is a more immediate crisis than even climate change. 

Also read: OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google's Sundar Pichai, Microsoft's Satya Nadella discuss AI with US govt

Also read: Not training GPT-5: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reveals plans about next ChatGPT update