Why Silicon Valley loves universal basic income

The latest UBI pilot, backed by Sam Altman, shows once more the benefits of giving people money. Will the rest of the country ever listen?

The Unconditional Income Study, which began in 2019 and stands as one of the biggest direct income programs to date, finally released on Monday research related to its findings. The project found that, in general, distributing $1,000 monthly to recipients in Illinois and Texas provided improved financial flexibility without disincentivizing workforce participation. But just as interesting as the research itself is the group behind the work: The study was backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, making it just the latest—and perhaps the largest—experiment in universal basic income (UBI) to come out of Silicon Valley.