Sam Altman Got Hooked on TikTok While Building Sora
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed he deleted TikTok after scrolling for hours nightly while researching the app for Sora. Here's what it changed about their product design.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on the "How to Start a Startup" podcast that he developed a TikTok habit while intentionally researching the app's addictive mechanics during Sora's development. Sessions he planned to cap at 10 minutes stretched to an hour or more each evening, with one Saturday scroll running to nearly three hours. He eventually deleted the app, disabled almost all phone notifications, and said the experience directly shaped how OpenAI approached Sora's product design.
What happened
| Detail | Fact |
|---|---|
| Podcast | How to Start a Startup |
| Planned session length | ~10 minutes |
| Actual nightly usage | 1 hour or more |
| Longest single session | ~3 hours (one Saturday) |
| Sora launch date | October 2025 |
| Sora app and website closure | April 2026 |
| Sora API closure | Later in 2026 (planned) |
| EU finding on TikTok | Early 2026: infinite scroll and addictive algorithms may breach the Digital Services Act |
Altman told the podcast he set out to understand TikTok’s appeal as part of the research behind Sora, OpenAI’s AI video app. The intention was analytical. The outcome was personal: he found himself scrolling for hours each night before bed, including one Saturday where he lost roughly three hours to the feed before realising how much time had passed.
He described the experience as both enjoyable and unsettling. The instant satisfaction was clear, but so was the sense that the habit was unhealthy. After trying to cap usage at 5 to 10 minutes and failing, he deleted TikTok entirely. He also turned off almost all phone notifications, including messaging apps, and called that combination one of the best decisions he has made.
How this shaped Sora’s design
According to Altman, the personal experience fed directly into how OpenAI thought about Sora’s product design. The team did not want to build engagement through the same mechanisms he had just watched work on himself. He went further, saying OpenAI would shut the service down if it was not genuinely improving users’ lives rather than just capturing their attention.
That statement turned out to be more than rhetoric. OpenAI closed the Sora app and website in April 2026. The API is scheduled to follow later in the year. OpenAI cited resource focus as a factor, but the framing around addictive design was part of the public explanation from the start.
Why it matters
The story lands at an awkward moment for social platforms. Early in 2026, the European Union concluded that TikTok’s infinite scroll and recommendation algorithms may violate the Digital Services Act. Altman has also joined other industry leaders calling for reduced screen time, particularly for younger users.
For businesses building AI products or managing AI-driven content tools, this is a useful case study in the tension between engagement metrics and product ethics. A product that keeps users in the app longest is not automatically a product worth keeping. OpenAI essentially chose to kill Sora rather than redesign it around habit loops, which is a rare public stance for a company with commercial pressure.
If you are using AI tools for content or social media strategy, it is worth asking whether the platforms you rely on are optimising for outcomes you actually want, or just for time-on-screen.
Our take
The detail that makes this story credible is the specificity: 10-minute plan, hour-plus reality, one three-hour Saturday. Altman is not describing a vague concern about tech; he is describing something that happened to him in a measurable way.
The Sora shutdown is harder to read. “We closed it because we refuse to be addictive” is a cleaner narrative than “we closed it because it did not gain enough traction,” and both things can be true at once. Still, the design principle itself is sound and worth borrowing: if your product’s success depends on users not being able to stop, that is a fragile foundation.
For teams integrating AI into client products, the practical takeaway is to define your success metric before you build. Engagement time is easy to measure and easy to game. Whether users’ lives improved is harder, but it is the metric that holds up over time. Altman’s story is a useful prompt to have that conversation early.
More coverage of AI product decisions and industry moves is available in our AI news section.
What to do about it
- Audit your own digital products: identify any features that drive engagement through compulsion rather than value.
- Define a “user outcome” metric alongside your engagement metric before your next build or redesign.
- If you use AI-generated video or content tools, check whether the platform’s incentives align with your audience’s actual needs.
- Review notification settings on team devices. Altman’s call to disable nearly all alerts is a low-cost productivity move backed by his own experience.
Frequently asked questions
Why did OpenAI shut down Sora?
OpenAI closed the Sora app and website in April 2026, citing resource focus. Sam Altman had also stated publicly that he would shut the service down if it was not genuinely improving users' lives. The API closure is expected later in 2026.
What did Sam Altman say about TikTok addiction?
On the 'How to Start a Startup' podcast, Altman said he began using TikTok to understand its engagement mechanics while developing Sora. Planned 10-minute sessions grew into nightly scrolls of an hour or more, including one three-hour session on a Saturday. He eventually deleted the app and turned off almost all phone notifications.
When did Sora launch and when was it shut down?
OpenAI launched Sora in October 2025. The app and website were shut down in April 2026, with the API expected to close later that year.
Did the EU take action against TikTok's addictive features?
Early in 2026, the European Union determined that TikTok's infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendation features may violate the Digital Services Act, which governs large online platforms operating in the EU.
