Offline with Jon Favreau

Sam Altman's Big Little Lies

April 11, 2026·55 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

New Yorker journalist Andrew Marantz joins Offline to break down his new investigation into Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Over the course of hundreds of interviews, including over a dozen with Altman himself, Andrew and his coauthor Ronan Farrow unveiled a leader who tells people exactly what they want to hear, whether or not it’s true. Just like the AI model he created! Jon and Andrew discuss the contradictory narratives coming out of OpenAI, whether they could build portals that summon aliens, and how Altman’s resolve to go “founder mode” means he may be headed down the same well-traveled path as many tech oligarchs before him.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.

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