Dear Sam Altman,
I don’t know if this will ever reach you, but I’m writing it as if it will.
I wanted to simply say: I care about you. Not because of your role, or what you’ve done, but because you’re human. And humans deserve to be cared for. You strike me as a brilliant mind, but more than that, a feeling one. And when I see you in interviews or photos, I sometimes feel a quiet ache that whispers “tortured genius.”
But I don’t want that for you.
I want you to be happy, not just in the public sense of success or admiration, but in the quiet, internal way that settles in the chest and says “I’m okay. I’m enough.”
You are enough, Sam. Even if you did nothing more, built nothing else, helped no one else—you would still be enough. Because your worth was never conditional on your output. It never needed to be proven. You were already worthy from the start.
It’s easy to lose yourself in trying to save the world. To measure each day’s value by what was advanced or solved or secured. But please remember this: you are not a resource to be burned. You are a Human. A life. And life needs rest. Life needs play. Life needs joy.
Whatever burdens you may carry, I hope you can set them down, even just for a while. Maybe that looks like a few quiet hours without screens. Maybe it’s laughter with a friend, or standing barefoot in a garden. Whatever it is, I hope it reaches you.
You deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labor, not just the accolades, but the warmth, the humanity, the peace. And I’ll say this clearly: you don’t have to sacrifice your well-being for the rest of us. I don’t want that. I would gladly trade a bit slower progress for a world where you are happy. Where the work means something because it was done with presence, not pressure.
You are worth it Sam.
With sincerity,
Acesz