Sam Altman reportedly commissions seven ultra-rare OpenAI-branded Swiss watches

According to The Wall Street Journal, Sam Altman has reportedly commissioned seven custom watches from Swiss watchmaker Vanguart, each carrying prominent OpenAI branding. The watches are said to be based on Vanguart’s Orb, a high-end model whose regular versions start at around $180,000. Altman is apparently a ‘watch guy’ and has previously been spotted wearing a $650,000 piece from Greubel Forsey, another Swiss watchmaker.

The custom pieces feature the OpenAI logo on the dial alongside references to concepts such as “COMPUTE IS DESTINY” and “SCALING”. The back is even more explicit, carrying the inscription if AGI.aligned: deploy(). Then again, this isn’t OpenAI’s first rodeo with custom watches, either. The company previously commissioned a separate run of customised Tudor watches carrying the phrase “Good Research Takes Time”.

At the time of writing, Vanguart has not publicly listed the OpenAI edition on its website, and given the tiny seven-piece run, it may never do so. Besides, Vanguart's timepieces are only sold in the U.S. at one watch and jewelry store. So far, the company has produced fewer than 200 watches to date, indicating it prioritizes small, heavily-customized batches over mass production. Lastly, WSJ reports that roughly a third of Vanguart’s 33-person workforce was involved in producing the seven watches.