Mr. Zhao started talking about his next act the moment the charge against him was announced. In a post on X the day of his plea hearing in November, for which he appeared in person in federal court in Seattle, he said he was interested in investing in areas like crypto, biotechnology and A.I.
“I may be open to being a coach/mentor to a small number of upcoming entrepreneurs,” he wrote. “If for nothing else, I can at least tell them what not to do.”
In a filing last week, prosecutors said Mr. Zhao had traveled throughout the United States, visiting New York, Los Angeles, Telluride and Moab. Mr. Zhao, who grew up partly in Canada, has spent some of his free time skiing and snowboarding, a person who knows him said.
Mr. Zhao met Mr. Altman in person about a year ago, a person with knowledge of the matter said. They were in contact again after a leadership battle at OpenAI in late November, two people familiar with the exchange said. The next month, over hot pot in Los Angeles, Mr. Zhao told Ronghui Gu, a computer science professor at Columbia University, that he had communicated with Mr. Altman.
“He talked to Sam, and they both believe that A.I. is going to help a lot in actualizing the development of technology and human knowledge,” Mr. Gu, who founded a start-up that Binance helped fund, said in an interview.
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