Sam Altman spends over a million dollars on seven custom Swiss watches

Sam Altman gave an expensive gift to the people who work with him: an order of seven exclusive, custom-made Swiss watches. According to the «Wall Street Journal», he spent over a million dollars on the purchase. Altman is one of the co-founders of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI.

The watches were made by Vanguart, a manufacturer based in La Chaux-de-Fonds that specializes in personalized creations. The base model is the titanium «Orb». The standard version of this model already costs 180,000 dollars apiece. The exact value of the entire order is not known.

Hidden details

The pieces have a sporty rubber strap. They can also switch between automatic and manual winding. The order called for a custom design featuring the OpenAI brand and several distinctive details. Engraved in capital letters around the rotor of each watch is a quote attributed to Altman, «Compute is destiny». The crown pusher instead bears the word «Scaling», another term widely used in Silicon Valley jargon. Engraved on the back of each piece is the phrase «if AGI.aligned: deploy()», written in the Python programming language.

According to the WSJ, the idea for these details was suggested by Axel Leuenberger, CEO and co-founder of Vanguart. Mehmet Koruturk, the company's other co-founder and board chairman, explained the meaning of the Python inscription to the US paper: «Questo significa che l'IA deve essere utilizzata per scopi pacifici» (This means that AI must be used for peaceful purposes). The «Easter Eggs», meaning the hidden details, are according to Koruturk a hallmark of Vanguart's custom designs. «Cerchiamo di inserire omaggi sottili che solo chi sa dove cercare può riconoscere» (We try to insert subtle nods that only someone who knows where to look can recognize), Koruturk said.

Vanguart specializes in producing one-off pieces. According to Koruturk, the company has made fewer than 200 of them so far. Eleven of the company's employees, a third of its entire staff, worked on Altman's order.