Setting aside "Altman’s predecessor", how crazy is Lachy Groom's extraordinary life?

Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News

When a $4.4 million mansion in San Francisco was hit by an armed robbery disguised as a delivery person, $11 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. The focus of this bizarre case was not only the skillful robbers but also unexpectedly brought the homeowner, Lachy Groom, into the public spotlight.

The New York Post learned from police sources and individuals familiar with Sam Altman's past relationships that an armed robber disguised as a delivery person rang the doorbell of the residence. At home and being robbed was the direct victim, Joshua, who is Lachy Groom's roommate and business partner. The robber deceived them into opening the door under the pretense of signing for a package and borrowing a pen, then promptly drew a gun to take control of the situation.

The next 90 minutes were a nightmare: Joshua was bound with tape, beaten, and on the phone, an accomplice read out his personal information to extort him. In the end, the robbers forced Joshua to operate, emptying his cryptocurrency wallet, ultimately stealing around $11 million worth of Ethereum and Bitcoin, as well as his phone and laptop.

The case instantly sparked public opinion due to the identity of the homeowner - Sam Altman's ex-boyfriend. The New York Post reported that property records show Lachy Groom purchased the house on Dorland Street from Sam Altman's brother for $1.8 million in 2021, and he was also a close partner of the father of ChatGPT.

Although the news headline defines Lachy Groom with the gossip-laden label “ChatGPT boss Sam Altman's ex-boyfriend,” if you think Lachy Groom is just the “man who once stood behind Ultraman,” you are very mistaken.

A photo of Sam Altman and Lachy Groom posted on Facebook in 2014.

In 2018, the two attended the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, source: Getty Images

Putting aside the gossip and unfortunate incidents, if you look at Lachy Groom's resume, you'll find that even without Sam Altman's “halo,” his life script is enough to make 99% of entrepreneurs read it “on their knees.”

Child prodigy, former senior executive at Stripe, top investor, 30th employee at Stripe, co-founder of AI robotics company Physical Intelligence—these are all labels for 31-year-old Australian Lachy Groom. He also dared to make heavy bets on Figma, Notion, and Ramp when they were still under the radar.

Today, we will take this “heist” as an opportunity to uncover the “genius hunter” who emerged from Perth, Australia.

Australian Town Start: Don't Want to Go to School, Just Want to Make Money

Lachy Groom, born in Perth, Australia, clearly has the script of “the child of other people.”

According to reports from The West Australian and SmartCompany in 2012, Lachy Groom is a genuine “teen geek.”

Entered the industry at the age of 10: His grandfather taught him web programming languages HTML and CSS, and he became obsessed with coding.

At the age of 13 to 17, he founded and sold three companies: PSDtoWP, PAGGStack.com, and iPadCaseFinder.com.

Lachy Groom's fourth startup, Cardnap, allows users to search for discounted gift cards and resell their own gift cards.

In an interview with The West Australian, Lachy Groom's father, Geoff Groom, recalled that Lachy had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. He made money by walking dogs for others and even set up a lemonade stand with friends, always looking for ways to earn some pocket money and spot business opportunities.

After graduating from high school, Lachy Groom was very clear-headed; he didn't think traditional college education could teach him what he wanted. So, this young man made a life-changing decision: to go to the United States, to San Francisco, to the place closest to the heart of the internet.

Why? Because 17-year-old Lachy saw a reality at a glance: Australia's startup ecosystem simply cannot compare to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. More importantly, he discovered a harsh business truth: “Valuations in the U.S. are much higher.”

Join the elite circle of the Stripe mafia.

After arriving in the United States, Lachy Groom did not rush to become a VC, but instead joined a company that was still in its growth phase—Stripe. It turned out that this was not just a job, but a ticket to the power center of Silicon Valley.

Lachy Groom's LinkedIn profile shows that he was the 30th employee at Stripe, initially working on growth, then managing the global business development and operations teams, and participated in Stripe's expansion in Singapore, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, and later oversaw Stripe's card issuing business.

During Lachy Groom's 7 years at Stripe (2012-2018), he witnessed the company's growth into a “Silicon Valley giant.” This was not just a work experience, but a hands-on MBA course on “how to build scalable products in the internet era.”

This experience gave him three precious treasures:

1. Financial freedom.

2. Accumulated rich operational experience at Stripe and deeply understood how B2B SaaS can grow from zero to a scale of tens of billions.

3. It was precisely because of Stripe's outstanding performance that Lachy Groom later became one of the important members of the “Stripe Gang.” People in this circle later almost occupied half of the venture capital landscape in Silicon Valley.

Turning investors “going solo”

In 2018, Lachy Groom made a bold decision to “go solo” and leave Stripe.

He did not join a major fund but instead adopted the Solo Capitalist model, turning to full-time angel investing, and his investment approach is completely different from that of most angel investors.

Hustle Fund once analyzed his “approach”: most angel investors cast a wide net (investing in 100 companies, putting in 5,000 dollars each, and then praying that a few succeed), while Groom is a “sharpshooter” who dares to issue large checks ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 dollars when he sees a target, and makes decisions extremely quickly.

Lachy Groom's investment strategy can be summarized in one sentence: invest in tools that users or developers will spontaneously love, rather than software that they are forced to use. Core investment principles include a bottom-up adoption model, solving real workflow problems, and cautious yet meaningful investments.

According to PitchBook statistics, Lachy Groom has made 204 investments, with a portfolio of 122 companies, currently managing investments through multiple funds. He is known for his high hit rate, willingness to lead investments, and heavy focus on B2B/SaaS. Let's take a look at some of the “fantastic projects” he has invested in:

Design Tool Figma: Lachy Groom invested in Figma's seed round in 2018, when it was valued at $94 million. On September 15, 2022, Adobe announced it would acquire Figma for about $20 billion, but in 2023 the two parties terminated the acquisition agreement. After that, Figma took the path of going public, listing on the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025, with its market value soaring to $67.6 billion on the first day of trading, currently falling back to $17.5 billion. Based on the current market value, Lachy Groom's investment has yielded a return of 185 times.

Note-taking software Notion: Lachy Groom invested in Notion as one of the lead investors in 2019, when Notion was valued at 800 million dollars. Just two years later (in 2021), Notion's valuation quickly reached 10 billion dollars. According to a report by CNBC in September this year, Notion's annualized revenue has surpassed the 500 million dollar mark.

Ramp, a multinational fintech company: Lachy Groom participated in Ramp's seed funding round.

Talent management platform Lattice: Lachy Groom made an early investment when the company was still exploring product-market fit (around 2016-2017).

We can see Lachy Groom's investment logic: invest in products that can reshape the way we work, invest in young people who, like him back in the day, are eager to change the world.

Next stop: Equip the robot with a “brain”

Having earned enough money from software, Lachy Groom turned his attention to a more hardcore field.

With the arrival of the AI era, Lachy Groom began to ponder a bigger question: if the boundaries between AI and hardware become blurred, where will the next internet-scale innovation occur? The answer is: bringing general AI into the physical world.

In March 2024, he was no longer satisfied with investing behind the scenes, but instead teamed up with several legendary scientists to establish the robotics company Physical Intelligence (Pi).

The lineup of co-founders of Physical Intelligence is luxurious:

Karol Hausman: Formerly a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind and also a part-time professor at Stanford University.

Chelsea Finn: Formerly a member of the Google Brain team, she is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford.

Adnan Esmail: Worked at Tesla for four years and served as Chief Architect and Senior Vice President of Engineering at the US defense technology company Anduril Industries.

Brian Ichter: Former research scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Brain.

The company's goal sounds very sci-fi: to develop a universal foundational model that serves as the “brain” of robots, allowing them to be intelligent agents that can adapt to complex environments rather than just machines that can screw in bolts. Lachy Groom has stated that the uniqueness of Physical Intelligence lies in its aim to develop software that can be applied to various robotic hardware.

The capital market is also going crazy for this “Dream Team.” In the month of its establishment, Physical Intelligence completed a seed round financing of up to 70 million dollars, led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, OpenAI, and Sequoia Capital.

Just 7 months later, in November 2024, Physical Intelligence completed another $400 million in financing, led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, with other investors including OpenAI, Redpoint Ventures, and Bond.

Just a week ago (November 21), Physical Intelligence completed a $600 million financing round, bringing the company's valuation to $5.6 billion. CapitalG, the independent growth fund under Alphabet, led this round of financing, with existing investors Lux Capital, Thrive Capital, and Jeff Bezos continuing to participate.

Summary

From the boy in Perth, Australia, who wrote code in elementary school, to being part of Stripe's core team without even attending university, and now holding a massive check in one hand while building AI robots in Silicon Valley. Lachy Groom proves with his strength that his life story is a thousand times more exciting than the fringe label of “Altman's ex-boyfriend.”