OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is no longer the owner or a managing partner at the eponymous "startup fund" he has been associated with for over two years.
The OpenAI Startup Fund is also technically not owned by OpenAI, either, but when the fund was started in 2021, Altman was initially listed on business registration documents filed with the California Secretary of State and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Altman is no longer an owner or manager of the OpenAI Startup Fund, Axios reported on Monday.
When the fund closed on $175 million in commitments last year in May, Altman was still listed as a general partner, according to a filing.
By early 2024, Altman was removed from a new filing that listed Ian Hathaway and Bobby Wu as general partners.
Hathaway has been involved with the fund since 2021, Axios reported.
It's unclear why Altman was removed from the fund, but side bets in startups have landed him in trouble in the past. Part of the reason Altman was let go as the head of Y Combinator was that he personally invested in startups that he discovered through the incubator, according to the Washington Post.
OpenAI's Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap has also helped Hathaway run the fund, according to a previous report at the Information. It's unclear whether Lightcap is still involved in the fund.
Adding more mystery to the convoluted structures of OpenAI and the startup fund, a person who is reportedly unknown to either entity was listed on older business registration filings in California, Business Insider reported on Friday.
According to Business Insider, that person was listed as "Jacob Thomas Vespers" along with an associated organization called Vespers Inc.
A spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider that the document in question was "not legitimate" and "completely fabricated" but didn't clarify how that might have happened.
The OpenAI Startup Fund raised at least $185 million, according to SEC filings, including more than $175 million for its first fund. Another filing from February shows the fund raised $10 million for a special purpose vehicle, as well.
Microsoft and the University of Michigan Endowment are the fund's only limited partners that are disclosed, according to PitchBook.
The fund has made at least 17 investments, according to PitchBook. Those include Harvey, Descript, EdgeDB, Speak, Mem, 1X and Unify.
It also invested in two of the Bay Area's biggest AI funding rounds so far this year: Ambience Healthcare and Figure AI.
