If AI runs OpenAI, this is what CEO Sam Altman plans to do

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is already thinking about life after AI—though it’s not another tech venture or startup. He wants to become a farmer.

Speaking to Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner this week, Altman said, “I think there will come a time when AI can be a much better CEO of OpenAI than me, and I will be nothing but enthusiastic the day that happens.” When that day comes, he plans to spend more time on the farm he already owns and loves, where he used to drive tractors and pick crops before ChatGPT took off.

Altman isn’t just daydreaming. Over the years, he’s built a portfolio of high-end properties, including homes in San Francisco, Napa, and a $43 million estate on Hawaii’s Big Island. Still, the farm remains a personal retreat—a grounded contrast to the cutting-edge world of AI he inhabits.

The remarks also underscore his perspective on the AI revolution. Altman believes machines are already surpassing humans in some areas and predicts that by 2030, AI will exceed human intelligence more broadly. “In the short term, AI will destroy a lot of jobs. In the long term, like every other technological revolution, I assume we will figure out completely new things to do,” he said.

For Altman, the future of human work isn’t about competing with machines—it’s about caring for others. “Humans, human society, we have such main character energy, we don’t really care that the machines are smarter than us,” he said.

Even with AI rapidly advancing, Altman remains grounded in what makes humans unique. And for him, if the machines do eventually run OpenAI, he already knows what he’ll do next: trade boardrooms for tractors, algorithms for soil, and tech headlines for farm life.