Columnist at the Wall Street Journal covering technology and business.
The Altman IPO framing
Higgins's 3 May 2026 column framed the OpenAI IPO run-up "as the central narrative test of" Altman's career, quoting Paul Graham's assessment — "You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in five years and he'd be the king" — and adding: "Now, the cannibals are at the gate."
The column's analytical move is the Travis Kalanick comparison, which situates Altman in a founder archetype whose defining characteristic is survival through governance crises rather than product or technical judgment. That framing is the reason the piece is cited in the wiki's coverage: it treats OpenAI's governance history as the operative variable in assessing the company's public-market transition, rather than as background to a capability story.
Relationships
- related: Sam Altman — the subject
- related: OpenAI, AI Industry Discourse Analysis, AI Bubble Debate