I've seen Sam Altman in action plenty of times. Here's why I was surprised when I watched him on the stand.
Business Insider reporter Stephen Council outside the federal courthouse in Oakland. Stephen Council/Business Insider I've reported on CEO Sam Altman since ChatGPT's release, so I was eager to see his trial testimony. The trial's stakes are sky-high for Altman as he fights to keep control of OpenAI. Altman delivered his pitch for the company, though he didn't have answers for the hardest questions. It's tricky business to define Sam Altman's "day job." He's got the basic task of overseeing OpenAI's executives and staff , as any CEO does. Work doesn't stay at the office, though. Altman has become the public face of the AI boom, responsible for selling a technology that's upending workforces, capturing markets, and costing billions of dollars to build. That's often a high-wire act, and especially so this week — he also had to sell himself. I watched Altman's testimony on Tuesday in the Oakland courtroom where, for weeks, jurors h...
