Book Review — “Empire of AI” by Karen Hao

When I first cracked open Karen Hao’s Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, I had high hopes for it. Here was an acclaimed tech journalist, formerly the senior AI editor at MIT Technology Review and a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, with a front-row seat to the largest artificial intelligence story of our generation. The prologue, rich with behind-the-scenes detail on Altman’s brief ousting and dramatic reinstatement in 2023, grabbed me immediately. It promised the kind of reporting that only someone with deep sources and years of coverage could deliver. I was already salivating that this is Steve Coll-level stuff.

By the time I reached page 350, however, I found myself both better informed and deeply irritated. I dumped it.

Hao’s book, published in May 2025 and running a dense 450 pages, is marketed as the definitive inside account of how OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, morphed from an idealistic non-profit co-founded by Elon Musk to an empire with Sam Altman at its manipulative, messianic center. There’s no question she’s done her homework: the book draws on more than 300 interviews with current and former employees, insiders at Microsoft and Google, and a library of leaked emails and Slack messages.