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Before I departed for my maternity leave a few months ago, a source at OpenAI predicted, “We’ll have superintelligence on the other end.” (That’s right, President Trump didn’t just come up with that term a few weeks ago.) “And flourishing and abundance,” my source added, which is when I realized he was being sardonic. Well, now I’m back, and we’re all still waiting on that abundance to kick in. But I can tell you what has changed in the last five months: the conversation. I used to watch people’s eyes glaze over when I told them I covered AI for a living. Now I watch them darken with rage. Which leads me to the cover of our latest issue: Sam Altman, who beat out his fellow lab heads for the number one spot on our newly revived New Establishment list. Vanity Fair’s global editorial director Mark Guiducci sat down with Altman for a wide-ranging, challenging conversation on two separate days. Like him or not (and a lot of you do not like him!), I found this to be one of the most illuminating glimpses yet into the mind of one of the most powerful people on earth. I’d like to tell you a bit about how this list came together. Our first step was to review previous years’ editions. 1994: Bill Gates. David Geffen. Oprah. 2000: Steve Case. Sumner Redstone. Michael Bloomberg. 2016: Mark Zuckerberg. Jeff Bezos. Beyoncé. I think you’ll agree, these names represent a historical record of the times they ruled over. In the year 2026, we often grimaced at the list of names we had compiled. Where we once found ourselves honoring innovators, we now confront overlords. Which leaves us to answer the question: What does it mean to wield power in this strange, at times terrifying, new world? The fact is we aren’t telling you whom to hand power to. People like Altman, Jensen Huang, and Dario Amodei have gone ahead and taken it. I’m confident that when 2026 is taught in the history books, this list will be an accurate testament to how power has been wielded in this era. For more insights into the world of our number one pick, my colleague Chris Murphy has a review of Luca Guadagnino’s brand-new Sam Altman biopic, Artificial, which Chris calls “blisteringly brilliant.” I’m off to a screening myself this afternoon, and I can’t wait to see if any details from my own sci-fi-infused 2022 profile of Altman made it into the narrative. Mentioned in this issue: Sam Altman, Meta, Luca Guadagnino, Andrew Garfield, Anthropic, SpaceXAI, Jacob Coxon, OpenAI, Elon Musk, Jon Stewart, Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes |
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