The Briefing RoomApril 16, 2026via The Verge AI
Ronan Farrow on Sam Altman’s ‘unconstrained’ relationship with the truth
Why it matters
Ronan Farrow's deep-dive investigation into Sam Altman's trustworthiness exposes systemic governance failures at OpenAI and an AI industry racing toward IPO while sidestepping safety oversight. The story reframes the Nov 2023 board firing as a symptom of broader institutional capture, with implications for regulation, investor confidence, and democratic accountability in AI development.
Key signals
- 17,000-word New Yorker feature by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Sam Altman's pattern of dishonesty
- WilmerHale investigation findings kept to oral briefings only, not documented in writing
- Board member Sue Yoon quoted calling Altman 'a pathological liar' and describing 'fecklessness'
- Microsoft executives expressing concerns about exclusivity deals being violated; one compared Altman trajectory to 'Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried'
- Over 100 sources interviewed; growing willingness to go on record about Altman's behavior as reporting progressed
- Altman attributes trait to 'people-pleasing tendency and conflict aversion' but shows limited self-reflection
- Multiple investors and board members now say they lacked full information during Nov 2023 reinstatement decision
- No federal whistleblower protections exist for AI safety concerns; Jan Leike example cited
- Farrow investigated but found no corroboration for sexual assault or criminal allegations circulating in Silicon Valley
- OpenAI acquiring TBPN platform coinciding with investigative scrutiny completion
- Proposed policy solutions: mandatory pre-deployment safety testing, written record requirements for investigations, whistleblower protections modeled on Sarbanes-Oxley
The hook
Nobody talking about it yet: A 17,000-word investigation into Sam Altman's pattern of deception reveals Microsoft executives comparing him to Bernie Madoff—and it could reshape how regulators oversee AI.
Today on Decoder, I’m talking with Ronan Farrow, one of the biggest stars of investigative reporting working today. He broke the Harvey Weinstein story, among many, many others. And just last week, he and co-author Andrew Marantz published an incredible deep-dive feature in The New Yorker about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, his trustworthiness, and the rise of OpenAI itself.
One note before we go any further here —The New Yorker published that story and Ronan and I had this conversation before we knew the full extent of the attacks on Altman’s home, so you won’t hear us talk about that directly. But just to say it, I think violence of any kind is unacceptable, these attacks on Sam were unacceptable, and that the kind of helplessness that people feel, which leads to this kind of violence, is itself unacceptable, and it’s worth a lot more scrutiny from both the industry and our political leaders. I hope that’s clear.
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All that said, there is a lot swirling around Altman that’s fair game for rigorous reporting — the kind of reporting Ronan and Andrew set out to do. Thanks to the popularity of ChatGPT, Altman has emerged as the most visible figurehead of the AI industry, having turned a once nonprofit research lab into an almost trillion-dollar private company in just a few years. But the myth of Altman is deeply conflicted, equally defined both by his obvious dealmaking ability and his reported tendency to… well, lie to everyone around him.
The story is over 17,000 words long, and it contains arguably the definitive account of what happened in 2023 when the OpenAI board of directors very suddenly fired Altman over his alleged lying, only for him to be almost instantly rehired. It’s also a deep dive into Altman’s personal life, his investments, his courting of Middle Eastern money, and his own reflections on his past...
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