Sam Altman: Open AI’s $1.4T Question

This week feels like the calm before a beautiful new beginning.

My daughter starts Förskola next week - the Swedish word for pre-school, and I’m incredibly excited for her. She’ll finally have a vibrant space to play, learn, and make friends. For me, it means I can start working outside the house again and explore more of Stockholm.

First on my list are Gamla Stan, the old town with its colorful cobblestone streets, and KTH (Kungliga Tekniska högskolan) - Sweden’s leading engineering university. I’ve heard so much about their cutting-edge research and facilities, and I can’t wait to see it in person.

On the tech side, I dove deeper into data engineering this week. I’ve been experimenting with Databricks, and it’s been humbling to see how much thought and effort go into building reliable data pipelines. It’s a world where clean design meets gritty problem-solving — and I’m loving it.

I’m also finally preparing for my AWS Cloud certification. Since Monday, I’ve been waking up at 4 a.m. every day to study for two focused hours. It’s tough, but deeply satisfying to rebuild that early-morning discipline again.

Somewhere in between, I stumbled on this fascinating interview - Brad Gerstner in conversation with Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Sam Altman (OpenAI). They unpack the $3 trillion AI buildout transforming technology, business, and the global economy.

​At one point, Brad asked Sam a question that really stuck with me:

How can a company making $13B worth of revenue make a $1.4T commitment?

Sam’s reply was short but sharp:

If you want to sell your shares, I will find you a buyer.

At first, it sounded bold - even iconic. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt like a deflection. He didn’t actually answer the question. Instead, he dismissed it - which might reveal something deeper: that even the most powerful voices in AI are still navigating uncharted territory.

That kind of dismissal has consequences. When leaders frame skepticism as weakness, we lose the space for healthy debate. Investors stop asking hard questions, boards stop demanding clarity, and the public gets swept up in the story of inevitability - that AI will pay off because it must. But history shows that every technological leap, no matter how transformative, has a human and economic cost. Conviction without accountability can be dangerous.

Watching that exchange, I couldn’t help but think back to Sam’s fallout with the previous OpenAI board. That strange, chaotic weekend when he was briefly fired and then reinstated after public and employee backlash. At the time, the reasons were unclear. But moments like this interview add some color to that story. Perhaps the tension wasn’t just about AI safety or governance — maybe it was also about this deep, almost immovable confidence that sometimes leaves no room for challenge.

What struck me most about that moment wasn’t the confidence — it was how quickly faith replaced logic. Maybe that’s the real tension in this AI age: the line between visionary leadership and unexamined belief is getting blurrier.

Next week brings a new rhythm - for both me and my daughter. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.