San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie has tapped OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to help run his transition team as part of the administration's efforts to embrace the high-tech industry, his campaign said Monday. It was announced on . Altman, along with nine other San Francisco leaders, will coach Lurie's team on how the city can innovate and help the new mayor build relationships with key partners.
“I'm excited to support the city I love and the birthplace of OpenAI as Mayor-elect Lurie begins its next chapter as he steps into his new role,” Altman said in a statement to TechCrunch. Ta.
An heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, Lurie had never held elected office and was an outsider to the rough-and-tumble nature of San Francisco politics, pitting him against incumbent Mayor London Breed. He personally invested nearly $9 million in campaign funds.
When Lurie takes office on January 8, he will be tasked with addressing San Francisco's public safety crisis, which has driven many technology leaders away from the Bay Area. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has invested millions of dollars in the city, has not been shy about criticizing the city's failures on public safety. Elon Musk closed X's downtown San Francisco office in August, citing similar concerns about drug use and crime. But Musk's AI startup soon moved into OpenAI's old offices in the city's Mission District.
Nevertheless, these issues have led many Silicon Valley leaders to retreat from the region and move to younger tech hubs such as Miami and Austin. In many cases, city officials loudly criticized them as they left. A key task for San Francisco's new mayor will be attracting young professionals to the city and convincing current tech entrepreneurs to stay and build companies here.
Apparently, the new mayor wants Sam Altman to help lead that effort. Lurie previously called OpenAI's CEO “one of the most important people on the planet” in a recent interview with The Information and urged Altman and other technology leaders to play a role in revitalizing downtown San Francisco. He said he would like to see it fulfilled.
Another Silicon Valley alum, Ned Segal, Twitter's former chief financial officer, will join Altman on Lurie's transition team. Segal left Twitter along with former CEO Parag Agrawal in 2022 after the social media company was acquired by Elon Musk. Mr. Segal currently serves on the board of several venture-backed companies, including Beyond Meat and RingCentral, as well as Mr. Lurie's nonprofit Tipping Point.
Hiring technology company executives to advise the administration could be the next big thing in politics. On the national stage, President-elect Donald Trump recently announced that Elon Musk will advise the White House as part of a new group aimed at increasing efficiency in the federal government. In either case, Musk and Altman are likely to play a major role in the political arena, but they won't have to give up their financial interests.
In addition to running one of the world's leading AI companies with multiple offices in San Francisco, Altman also ran Y Combinator, the city's famous startup incubator, from 2014 to 2019. Altman could specifically help Lurie, the current CEO, curry favor with the startup and YC itself. Gary Tan gave San Francisco's new mayor a less-than-warm hug.
“If Mr. Lurie wins, I will be watching his management like a hawk, and he will be relentlessly held accountable by me and all of my friends,” said Y Combinator's Garry. Tan said in a tweet in October.
Mr. Tan criticized Mr. Lurie for using his personal funds to outspend his competitors.
However, the non-profit organization Grow SF, of which Tan is a director, endorsed Lurie in the mayoral race. Tan has played an increasingly prominent role in San Francisco politics in recent years and is seen as a leader by many young founders and engineers in the city.
Mr. Lurie could use Mr. Altman to win over Mr. Tan and other tech entrepreneurs who are skeptical of San Francisco's leadership. Mr. Altman, on the other hand, may use the title to advance his political standing. As OpenAI matures, its world is slowly coming under siege.
Other transition team co-chairs include former San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joan Hayes White; Jose A. Quiñones, founding CEO of Mission Asset Fund; Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs. Nancy Tan, director of the Vulnerable Victims Unit and Community Partnerships at the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. and former San Francisco Police Chief Paul Yep. Advisors to the transition team include Sara Fenske Bahat, former interim chief executive of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Anne O'Leary, attorney, partner at Jenner & Block; Ben Rosenfield, former San Francisco air traffic controller.