For most of his life, Sam Altman has resembled an accelerating train. He founded a startup as a teenager, achieved middling success ¡ª and then jumped to running Silicon Valley¡¯s premier startup accelerator. After that, Altman co-founded OpenAI, whose ChatGPT tool has whipped up a frenzy of excitement about generative AI.

Now 38, Altman has become the face of an AI-fueled future, traveling around the world to explain to world leaders and everyone else how the technology he¡¯d helped create would change everything about human existence. He was the most Silicon Valley person alive.

Then, on Friday, he was fired.