Ronan Farrow

That to an extraordinary extent, even on small things that are completely unnecessary to have any deception about, you know, we talk about an instance where

He's in an office with colleagues apparently claiming that he was like a champion competitive ping pong player.

Altman says that this was probably a joke, but people thought it was serious enough that they were struck by the fact that then he was one of the worst ping pong players in the office.

This is to give you an example

banal it is sometimes.

And then as Andrew pointed out, it extends to people allege that he has concealed some of his financial interests, that he deceived some board members and executives about the safety testing requirements of some products.

So it also then filtered into serious stuff.

And I will say I've never been on a story before where something this peculiar in that it's not a bright line smoking gun, but it is so prevalent that it is almost, I'm barely being hyperbolic here, all anyone can talk about after walking out of rooms with him.

That is...

an extraordinary thing and very difficult to grapple with in a piece like this.

We try to do it with great subtlety.

And I think this is an important sort of summary after spending a year immersed in this.

We represent in this piece a range of perspectives.

There are the defenders of Altman, of course, and we spoke to many of them, and they're represented in this piece.

And amongst the critics, there's a spectrum.

There's the people who are, you know, diehard safetyists, and they say, look, this technology may kill us all, and he is Machiavellian and sociopathic.

There's all these extreme terms that get used by some critics, and that therefore this is truly dangerous.

There are people in between who say this is just dysfunctional management, that even if you're purely profit motivated, an executive of a company this important can't be making conflicting representations all the time.

I tend to feel inclined towards the analysis of Sam Altman through my own dealings with him in this story that holds, you know, it's not that Machiavellian.

I think that he is someone who he actually grapples with this in a new and more sincere way in this piece.