OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once said the only time he ever ‘froze’ was when he met his childhood idol Steve Jobs

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he let his nerves get the better of him when he met Steve Jobs. 
• In a resurfaced interview clip, Altman called Jobs his “childhood idol.”
• The OpenAI CEO has more recently been compared to tech titans like Jobs. 

Sam Altman once became deeply starstruck after meeting his idol, Steve Jobs.

In a resurfaced interview clip from December 2015, which was recently published on CNN’s website, a fresh-faced Altman said meeting the Apple cofounder left him nervous to the point that he couldn’t move.

Altman called Jobs his “childhood idol” and said auditioning in front of him in his early 20s was the only time he’d ever “frozen out of nervousness in any business context.”

These days, Altman is more likely to be compared to the Apple cofounder than be starstruck by any major tech leader.

The OpenAI CEO has become a star within the tech world after his company launched the viral chatbot ChatGPT. Altman is seen as one of the key players, if not the face of, the AI race unfolding in Silicon Valley.

Altman’s company has been closely tied to and heavily backed by Microsoft, setting off alarm bells at old rival Google and kickstarting what some have described as an AI arms race.

In other republished interview clips, Altman predicted much of what would develop in the AI sector — including the AI job insecurity that has been kickstarted by the rapid development of advanced generative AI.

In a separate interview clip also published by CNN, Altman said: “We should assume that AI is going to replace a lot of human capability, and we should figure out the things that humans are really good at.”