Why the AI age calls for ‘founder mode’

AI panic flared this September after a former Anthropic researcher warned on X that the technology could destroy humanity and said major frontier labs were “gambling with our lives.” Fortune frames that moment as a kind of public awakening, the point when a long-running expert warning stopped feeling abstract and started feeling immediate. That urgency is the backdrop for its latest Titans conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

In an hour-long interview, Altman talked about the risks AI poses to people, how fast models are improving, and what he would do if he decided AI could not be built safely. He also discussed OpenAI’s eventual public listing. His view there was unusually blunt: a public offering is “ill-advised” while the safety fight is still so charged, and he said it would not happen before 2027.

Fortune’s bigger argument is that AI is already reshaping more than software. It is changing hiring, supply chains, and what leadership is supposed to look like. The old model — careful, spreadsheet-heavy, detached — is giving way to something more direct and more forceful: “founder mode.” That means staying close to the work, trusting conviction, and moving fast when problems show up.

Mary Barra of General Motors puts the point neatly: “Agility is a superpower now.” Fortune uses that idea to frame a wider corporate test. Apple is one example. Tim Cook’s legacy was built on operational discipline and on extending the iPhone into a hugely profitable ecosystem of products, services, and retail. With longtime product executive John Ternus set to take over, the company now faces a different question: can it surprise people again in the AI era?

The issue then widens the lens. It points to Nikesh Arora at Palo Alto Networks, David Cote at Vertiv, Andrew Forrest at Fortescue, and Travis Kalanick’s new robotics venture, Atoms, as examples of this same hands-on style. The through-line is simple: in a world moving this fast, Fortune thinks leadership has to be more than competent. It has to be personal, sharp, and a little bit relentless.