I think the motivation for someone like Altman is not AGI, it's power and influence.
And when he wields billions he has power, it doesn't really matter if there's AGI coming.
I view OpenAI like a pyramid scheme: taking in increasing amounts of money to pursuit ever growing promisses that can be dangled like a carrot to the next investor.
If you owe investors $100 million, that's your problem. If you owe investors $100 billion, that's their problem.
I'm old enough to remember it, but young enough not to remember it well.