'Played a lot in college': OpenAI founder Sam Altman is a poker fan, recommends people play it

Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI and the creator of ChatGPT, believes the game of poker can teach a lot about taking risks in businesses. Altman shared his love for poker in a podcast back in 2018 with an ex-Y Combinator executive Craig Cannon. Four years later, Altman is now looked upon as a tech revolutionary who has made artificial intelligence accessible to the global public with ChatGPT.

In the podcast, Altman reveals how he frequently played poker when he was studying in Stanford University in California. But Altman warns poker isn't for everyone.  
     
"The things that I think have taught me a lot about business are poker and angel investing so I recommend both of those," Altman said.

"I played a lot in college like fairly seriously and it's not for everybody, but I strongly recommend it as just a way to learn about the world in business, in psychology, and risk, and everything else," he added.

Also read: 'Didn't think it would be a phenomenon': OpenAI founder Sam Altman recounts Day 1 of rolling out ChatGPT

"I went to school on the peninsula (San Francisco) and so I would go down there (casino) a lot you know," he said. Altman candidly shared he'd win enough from poker to fund his living expenses during college but not so much that he could fund his start up.

"It (poker) did not (provide funds) for my startup, but it funded my living expenses as a college student," he said. Later in his career, Altman would find himself not just running his own start-up, but also funding others as the head of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator.

Altman became the President of Y Combinator in 2014 and would go on to launch OpenAI in 2015 as a lab platform to research artificial intelligence. Elon Musk was one of the early backers of Open AI, where the Tesla founder invested $50 million initially.

However, the ties between Musk and Altman have soured after OpenAI struck a deal with Microsoft in 2019. The software tech giant invested $1 billion in Altman's OpenAI in 2019. In a recent Twitter Spaces interaction with CNBC's David Faber, Musk called out OpenAI for moving away from the non-profit model and said: "I am the reason OpenAI exists. I came up with the name. The name OpenAI refers to open source."

Also read: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to visit India this week