The Young Man Who Threw a Molotov Cocktail at Sam Altman's Home

On a Friday morning in April, a young man walked up to Sam Altman's San Francisco home and threw a Molotov cocktail at the front door. Hours later, he arrived at OpenAI's headquarters, pulled out a jug of kerosene, and told security guards he had come to burn the building down and kill everyone inside. When police released the suspect's name—Daniel Alejandro Moreno Gama, age 20—the host of this podcast recognized it immediately. "That's Dan," he thought. A few months earlier, in January, Dan had sat down for an interview. He was then 19, posting anonymously on a Discord server called Stop AI, and he was one of the very few people in those online spaces willing to talk on the record about his views on AI and the possibility of violence.

From Suburban Teenager to AI Doomer

Dan grew up in the suburbs and got his first iPad around fourth or fifth grade. By age nine, he was living online. His early internet life consisted mainly of debating strangers in YouTube comment sections. His political views shifted as he consumed online content—first Ben Shapiro clips, then Bernie Sanders videos. It was through YouTube that he eventually encountered arguments about artificial intelligence from figures like Eliezer Yudkowsky, Max Tegmark, and Connor Leahy.