The Optimist
The Optimist by Keach Hagey is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including McKinsey & Company, for a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedHagey's reporting advantage is access: years covering OpenAI for the Wall Street Journal let her reconstruct Altman's ouster and rapid reinstatement with a level of internal detail few outsiders could get. What emerges isn't hagiography or takedown but a study in contradiction — a founder who built OpenAI as a nonprofit safeguard against runaway AI, then presided over its conversion into a fundraising machine chasing the same competitive dynamics the nonprofit structure was meant to prevent. Hagey traces this less as hypocrisy than as drift, showing how each individually reasonable decision compounded into an outcome nobody on the board seemed to have chosen outright.
In the press
“An exemplary blend of biography, financial technology reportage, and futurology.”
Kirkus Reviews“Excellent and deeply reported.”
Tim Wu, The New York Times Book Review
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McKinsey & Company | 0.80 | 0.85 | 1.00× | 0.68 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.68 → 15 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is The Optimist on?
The Optimist appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including McKinsey & Company.
What is its Consensus Score?
The Optimist has a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.