Why Sam Altman Deleted TikTok Despite Building the Future of AI

SAN FRANCISCO — According to a study published by the Pew Research Center, 28% of U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 report spending too much time on TikTok. In the same survey, 37% of teens said the platform negatively impacted their sleep, while 29% said it diminished their productivity.

Those figures form part of a wider concern among technology executives about highly engaging algorithms. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said he would not allow his children near algorithmic feeds, calling the format “dangerous” for developing minds. “I wouldn’t let my kids near that stuff, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect kids to be able to resist that dopamine thing or know that they even should,” Altman said.

Altman is now a father to a young son with his husband, Oliver Mulherin, whom he married in January 2024. Yet at an industry event with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, he described a more limited personal habit: using short-form video platforms for five to ten minutes before bed to decompress.

His earlier experience with TikTok was considerably less controlled. Altman downloaded the app as professional research while OpenAI was developing Sora, its text-to-video generative artificial intelligence model unveiled in February 2024 to generate highly realistic video clips from text prompts. He wanted to study the mechanics of popular short-form media.

During an appearance on the *Relentless* podcast, Altman said that a few minutes of scrolling eventually became hour-long sessions. One Saturday afternoon, he spent three consecutive hours scrolling through the app. He later deleted TikTok from his phone. “I deleted TikTok because it was just too powerful,” Altman said, adding that despite the capabilities of the iPhone, he lacked the self-control required to keep the software on his device.

Altman’s approach echoes restrictions previously imposed by other Silicon Valley figures. In 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told *The New York Times* that his children did not use the newly released iPad and that he limited the amount of technology they used at home. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates likewise enforced strict limits on screen time and prohibited his children from owning smartphones until they were 14 years old.

Not every executive favors avoidance. Josh Bayliss, CEO of Virgin Group, has said executives have a commercial obligation to remain active on platforms like TikTok so they can understand changing demographics. Bayliss considers monitoring the apps critical to staying aligned with consumers in their 20s, who are actively shaping modern culture.

Other leaders recommend a structured form of moderation. At a business forum in Macau, Feng Ren, the co-CEO of clinical-stage generative AI drug-discovery company Insilico Medicine, suggested that professionals deliberately set aside short windows of 15 to 30 minutes during the day to sit quietly and read news or WeChat messages as a controlled way to decompress from operational pressures.

Altman served as the president of startup accelerator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019 before taking the helm at OpenAI. Speaking on the *Titans and Disruptors of Industry* podcast, he said he frequently retreats to reading physical books, particularly firsthand, historical accounts of previous technological transitions such as the Industrial Revolution, to contextualize the rapid evolution of the modern artificial intelligence landscape.