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Relentless · 3 min · Jul 25, 2026

ChatGPT's first million users changed Altman's job overnight

On day five, ChatGPT passed one million users after several days of rising peaks. Sam Altman says he recognized the organic growth pattern and realized OpenAI was about to become a much larger company.

Sam Altman is co-Founder & CEO of OpenAI.

Ti Morse, Host · Host, Relentless
Interviews hard-tech founders on Relentless; guests include Sam Altman, Brian Armstrong and Hadrian's Chris Power.

About this segment

On day five, ChatGPT passed one million users after several days of rising peaks. Sam Altman says he recognized the organic growth pattern and realized OpenAI was about to become a much larger company.

From “Sam Altman - How to Start a Startup”, Jul 25, 2026. Watch the full episode

“that was when it really hit me that like we were about to become a company and it was going to go very fast”

Sam Altmanat 39:18 · Relentless39:18

Takeaways

The daily peaks kept rising before the million-user mark.
YC experience helped him read the organic growth signal.
The launch abruptly shifted his role toward company-building.

In this episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

38:40
No. The fifth day after ChatGPT launched was the day we crossed a million users. And I had like watched it go up the first day and then come down in the afternoon and then go up the second day to a higher peak and then come down, go up the third day to a higher peak and then come down. And each of these days, the researchers were like, oh, that was some crazy flash in the pan PR thing. This is like over and you know that's not going to happen and i had seen enough at yc that i knew that when something was growing like that completely organically it this had all of the spectral signature to me of something that is like was going to happen and then on the fifth day it crossed a million users and i came home and that was when it really hit me that like we were about to become a company and it was going to go very fast and it was going to be a crazy like a like
39:32
we were just gonna turn into like a big company real quick and i had watched what these founders went through and i came home and ollie was like oh i saw that you crossed a million years congratulations i was like you have no idea how bad this is you have no idea what's about to happen it's not just bad for me it's bad for you too like we have this nice quiet life you know it's really wonderful it's about to like kind of go through a canon in.
40:00
And that is what happened. But it was like a very abrupt transition. I knew it was going to come. And I had watched other people go through it. And I knew that it was like not a pleasant experience. But I was like, well, we're being shot out of the cannon. Here we go. Were you like subconsciously just like preparing yourself for years? If you know that this is eventually going to happen and the intelligence is going to get good enough, where like there will be a magical product?
40:24
my take on it is that i intellectually knew it was going to happen at some point i had no idea when i didn't know that was gonna be the moment of course um but that i had decided to pretend to myself and i had successfully diluted myself into a sort of acting like it wasn't going to happen um truly running the research lab was the coolest most fun most amazing job and lifestyle setup i could possibly have imagined how so i mean you were like it's not stressful at all uh it was intellectually incredibly satisfying it was the smartest group of people with probably the most important work that has happened in like the last century maybe longer i don't know and i had this like front row seat and like that was a once in many generations moment it was unbelievable it was the coolest thing are you guys experiencing that same kind of