Fame, Feud and Fortune: Inside Billionaire Alexandr Wang’s Relentless Rise in Silicon Valley

In January 2021, Alexandr Wang’s friends and colleagues gathered for a party at his swank South of Market apartment, which featured a 2,000-foot private terrace with a hot tub and views of the San Francisco skyline. Wang, co-founder and CEO of Scale AI, wanted to mark his birthday with a bang: He was turning 24.

Wang had spent the holidays with his family in his native New Mexico and returned to San Francisco to celebrate with the clan he had formed in the city, many of whom belonged to Silicon Valley’s most elite circles. The party’s attendees included Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO and co-founder, who lived with Wang at the apartment for several months during the pandemic. While others were reveling, Altman sat at his desk working for a portion of the party, one attendee recalled.

In the years since, Wang, who declined to comment for this story, has further cemented himself in the upper echelons of Silicon Valley, partly through his knack for getting into the right rooms and securing the high-powered connections that can propel a young founder’s fortunes.