Snapshot · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Kokotajlo refused to sign OpenAI's anti-disparagement exit clause and stood to lose roughly $2 million — about 80% of his net worth — before the policy was publicly reversed.
Where this was said
At 18:02 · chapter starts 16:56
Steven Bartlett raises the story that first brought Kokotajlo to wide public attention: the $2 million he stood to lose for refusing to sign OpenAI's exit paperwork. Kokotajlo walks through it methodically. After his farewell, he received exit documents containing two clauses: one requiring him never to criticise the company publicly, and a second requiring him to keep the existence of the first clause confidential. He found this incongruous for a nonprofit supposedly acting 'for the benefit of all humanity.' He and his wife spent a month to two months discussing it, consulted lawyers, and ultimately refused to sign. The $2 million in equity represented about 80% of their net worth at the time. What they didn't anticipate was the internet's reaction: employees started asking questions on Slack, a scandal erupted, and OpenAI quietly reversed the policy — keeping equity for all past employees. Sam Altman publicly claimed he hadn't known about the clause, a claim Kokotajlo politely but clearly disbelieves.
The $2 million in OpenAI equity that Kokotajlo stood to lose represented approximately 80% of his and his wife's total net worth at the time.
Sam built Algrow from zero to $14,000 in monthly revenue within just six months of shipping his first MVP.
Algrow reached over 10,000 users in roughly six months, driven almost entirely by organic Discord community growth.
Sam acquired his first 400 users entirely through Discord communities, without paid advertising or traditional outreach.
Algrow added exactly 480 new paying customers in its most recent month, demonstrating strong ongoing growth.
Sam's Stripe dashboard showed over £10,000 in revenue in the last four weeks, equivalent to roughly $13,000–$14,000 USD.
Sam gave all early users free access so they could show the tool to friends, turning them into live demos and advocates who helped the product spread virally.
By silently screen-sharing his tool in Discord voice chats rather than posting links, Sam attracted curiosity without violating no-self-promo server rules.
Before building Algrow, Sam and two friends made over $10,000 in revenue through affiliate marketing for RizzApp by posting faceless texting story content.
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
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