Sam Altman steps down as president of the start-up program Y Combinator

Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator (YC) is to step down from his post as president of the start-up accelerator YC, an organization that was influential in the creation of start-ups such as Airbnb, Dropbox Inc and Cruise.

Altman is YC’s second president and has become one of the start-up industry’s more outspoken leaders on issues such as universal basic income and the safety and ethical implications of artificial intelligence. He has spent the last five years expanding the program’s reach and scales to go beyond emerging start-ups and created a separate fund and training program for larger, more mature tech companies. Under his leadership, YC has also expanded into China and added several other start-up programs.

Altman will remain chairman at the company, moving to spend more time working on artificial intelligence efforts, including OpenAI, a non-profit research organization which he helped found and co-chairs. helped found non-profit AI research organization OpenAI.

Meanwhile, YC plans to move north from Mountain View, California to San Francisco, to be closer to its Bay Area alumni, who disproportionately live and work in the city.