Dean Ball Appraises Political Theory Shelf at City Lights Bookstore

The Ball in OpenAI's court

Dean Ball in San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore. Christie Hemm Klok for BI On a gloomy July evening, Dean Ball is appraising the political theory shelf in the basement of San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore. It's the end of his second day at OpenAI, and he's arrived straight from orientation in a cashmere zip-up hoodie, carrying a company-issued tote bag. He pulls a copy of Friedrich Hayek's "The Pure Theory of Capital" from the shelf, notes how rare it is to see it in the wild, and fli...