“Unlocking Success: Sam Altman, Founder of OpenAI, Shares His Secrets”

"Unlocking Success: Sam Altman, Founder of OpenAI, Shares His Secrets"

"Unlocking Success: Sam Altman, Founder of OpenAI, Shares His Secrets"

How To Be Successful
Author: Sam Altman, Founder of OpenAI
Translator: Zombit

I have observed thousands of entrepreneurs and have thought a lot about how to accumulate a large amount of wealth or create something significant. Often, people initially desire the former but ultimately hope for the latter.

Below are 13 thoughts I have on achieving this exceptional success. These ideas are more easily attainable for those who have already achieved a certain level of “success” through privilege or hard work and who want to further transform it into “exceptional success.” However, most of the content is applicable to everyone.

Table of Contents
Toggle
Continuously Grow Yourself
Have an Almost Excessive Amount of Confidence
Learn to Think Independently
Master “Sales”
Make Risk Easy to Bear
Stay Focused
Work Hard
Take Bold Actions
Have Strong Determination
Raise the Bar of Competition
Build a Network
Get Wealthy Through Ownership
Intrinsic Motivation
Note: My Responses on HN (Hacker News)

Compound interest is magic; search for it everywhere. The exponential curve is the key to generating wealth.

A mid-sized business that grows in value by 50% annually can become huge in a short period of time. There are few businesses in the world that truly have network effects and extreme scalability. However, as technology advances, more and more businesses will possess these characteristics, and it is worth putting in a significant effort to find and create them.

You should also become an exponential curve—you should make your life follow an upward trajectory. It is important to pursue a career that has compounding effects—most careers progress relatively linearly.

You wouldn’t want to engage in a career where the difference between someone with two years of experience and someone with twenty years of experience is marginal—your learning speed should always be at a high level. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should yield increasingly greater results. There are many ways to gain leverage, such as capital, technology, branding, network effects, and management.

Focus on increasing your success indicators (whether it’s money, status, impact on the world, or something else) by one level. Be willing to spend as much time as possible searching for the next project between projects. Personally, I hope that project will be one that “if successful, would make the rest of my career seem insignificant.”

Most people get bogged down by linear opportunities. Learn to give up on small opportunities and focus on potential transformative leaps.

I believe one of the greatest competitive advantages in business, whether for a company or an individual’s career, is the ability to engage in long-term thinking and have a broad perspective on how different systems in the world interconnect. A notable characteristic of exponential growth is that the further future becomes increasingly important. In a world where almost no one truly holds a long-term view, the market will generously reward those who possess such a perspective.

Trust the exponentials, be patient, and be pleasantly surprised.

Confidence is incredibly powerful; the most successful people I know are almost delusionally confident.

Cultivate this confidence early on, and as you prove your good judgment and ability to consistently deliver results, you will become increasingly self-assured. Conversely, if you do not believe in yourself, it is difficult to have unique perspectives on the future, which is where most value is created.

I remember many years ago when Musk took me to visit the SpaceX factory. He detailed the manufacturing process of every component of the rockets, but what impressed me the most was the absolute certainty on his face when he talked about sending large rockets to Mars. I left thinking, “Hmm, that’s the standard of belief.”

Managing your own morale—and that of your team—is one of the biggest challenges in most careers. It is almost impossible without a significant amount of confidence. Unfortunately, the more ambitious you are, the more the world will try to bring you down.

Most highly successful people have had a very correct vision of the future at some point, even when others thought they were wrong. Without this vision, they would face much more competition.

Confidence must be balanced with self-awareness. In the past, I despised any form of criticism and actively avoided it. Now I try to always assume that criticism is correct and then decide whether to take action. Seeking the truth is difficult and often painful, but it is the key to distinguishing confidence from self-deception.

This balance can also help you avoid appearing arrogant and unrealistic.

Entrepreneurship is difficult to teach because original thinking is hard to impart. Schools are not designed to teach this—in fact, they often reward the opposite behavior. So you have to cultivate this ability yourself.

Thinking from first principles and attempting to generate new ideas is fun, and finding people to discuss these ideas with is a good way to improve this skill. The next step is to find simple, quick ways to test these ideas in the real world.

“The mindset of an entrepreneur is that I will fail many times, but eventually I will succeed.” You must give yourself many opportunities to get lucky.

One of the most powerful lessons is that you can find a solution even in seemingly unsolvable situations. The more times you do this, the more you will believe it. Courage comes from repeatedly getting knocked down and getting back up.

Confidence alone is not enough—you must also be able to convince others to believe in what you believe.

All great careers involve some level of salesmanship. You must sell your plans to customers, potential employees, the media, investors, etc. This requires an inspiring vision, strong communication skills, some level of charm, and evidence of execution capability.

Improving communication skills—especially written communication skills—is a worthwhile investment. My best advice for clear communication is to ensure that your thinking is clear and then express it in simple, concise language.

The best way to become an excellent salesperson is to genuinely believe in what you are selling. Selling something you truly believe in feels good, while selling a false product feels bad for both yourself and others.

Improving sales skills is like improving any other skill—anyone can become better through conscious practice. However, for some reason, perhaps because it doesn’t feel good, many people believe it is an unteachable skill.

Another great sales technique I have is to show up in person when it matters. When I first started, I was always willing to take a flight. Although it was often unnecessary, there were three instances where it led to turning points in my career that might have turned out completely differently otherwise.

Most people overestimate risks and underestimate returns. Taking risks is important because you can’t always be right—you must try many things and adapt quickly through learning.

In the early stages of your career, taking risks is often easier; you don’t have much to lose and there may be a lot to gain. But once you reach a certain level, you should strive to make risks easier to bear. Look for bets where the loss is only 1x but the gain is 100x when they succeed. Then make a bigger bet in that direction.

But don’t save money for too long. At YC, we often see a problem where founders who have worked at Google or Facebook for a long time. Once people get used to a comfortable life, predictable work, and a reputation of always succeeding, it becomes difficult to give those things up (and people have an amazing ability to increase their standard of living to match next year’s salary). Even if they leave, the temptation to return is strong. Prioritizing short-term gains and convenience over long-term accomplishments is easy and human nature.

But when you’re not on the treadmill, you can follow your own intuition and spend time on things that could become very interesting. Keeping life simple and flexible for as long as possible is a powerful strategy, but obviously there are trade-offs.

Focus is a multiplier in work.

Almost everyone I’ve met could benefit from spending more time thinking about what to focus on. Finding the right work is more important than how long you work. Most people waste the majority of their time on trivial matters.

Once you find what you should be doing, relentlessly and quickly complete your few priority tasks without deviating from your goals. I have never seen someone who is slow and deliberate achieve great success.

By working smart or working hard, you can surpass 90% of people in your field, which is still a great achievement. But to reach the top 1%, you need both intelligence and hard work—you will be competing with other highly talented individuals who have great ideas and are willing to work hard.

Extreme results come from extreme people. Working hard comes with significant life trade-offs, and deciding not to do so is a completely rational choice. But it has many advantages. As is often the case, momentum accumulates, and success attracts more success.

And working hard is usually really fun. One of the greatest joys in life is finding your purpose, excelling at it, and discovering that your impact is significant to something larger than yourself. Recently, a YC founder stated that they felt happier and more fulfilled when they left a big company and pursued their maximum impact. Working hardShould be praised.

In some cases, working hard has become a bad thing in certain areas of the United States. I don’t understand the reasons behind it, but it is apparently not the case in other parts of the world. The energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the United States allow them to quickly become the new standard.

You must find a way to work hard without burning yourself out. People will find their own strategies, but the most effective way is often to find a job that you enjoy and people you enjoy being with.

I believe that those who pretend that they can achieve great success without working hard most of the time are misleading themselves. In fact, work ethic seems to be one of the biggest predictors of long-term success.

Another idea about working hard is to start doing so early in your career. Hard work accumulates like interest, and the earlier you start, the greater the payoff. It is also easier to fully dedicate yourself to work when you have fewer other responsibilities, such as a family.

I believe that starting a difficult startup is easier than starting an easy one. People want to be a part of something exciting and find fulfillment in their work.

If you are solving an important problem, there will always be people willing to help you. Allow yourself to be ambitious and don’t be afraid to do what you truly want to do.

If everyone else is starting a meme company and you want to start a gene editing company, then go for it, without any doubt.

Follow your curiosity. Things that excite you are often exciting to others as well.

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will in an astonishingly high proportion of the time – most people don’t even try, they just accept things as they are.

People have the tremendous ability to achieve things. Self-doubt, giving up too early, and not working hard enough prevent most people from reaching their potential.

Ask for what you want. You usually don’t get it, and rejection can often be painful. But when it works, the results are surprisingly good.

Those who say “I will persevere until it succeeds, no matter the challenges, I will overcome them” will eventually succeed. They are persistent and give themselves a chance at luck.

Airbnb is my benchmark. They have many stories, which I don’t recommend trying to replicate (such as using nine-slot three-ring binder pages meant for kids to store used credit cards, eating $1 store cereal for every meal, constantly fighting against powerful vested interests, etc.), but they managed to survive long enough for luck to be on their side.

To have willpower, you must be optimistic – hopefully, this is a character trait that can be improved through practice. I have never seen a very successful pessimist.

Most people understand that a company is more valuable if it is difficult to compete with. This is important and obviously true.

But it also applies to you personally. If what you do can be done by someone else, eventually it will be done by someone else at a lower cost.

The best way to raise the barrier to competition is to build leverage. For example, you can excel by building a strong personal brand, developing personal relationships, or becoming excellent at the intersection of multiple different fields. There are many other strategies, but you must find some way to achieve this.

Most people do what most people in their environment do. This mimicry is often a mistake – if you do the same things as others, you will be replaceable.

Great work requires a team. Building a network of talented individuals – sometimes tight-knit, sometimes loose – is an essential part of a great career. The number of truly talented people you know often limits what you can accomplish.

A effective way to build a network is to help others as much as possible. Doing this for a long time has been the source of most of my best career opportunities and three out of my four best investments. I am often surprised by the frequency of good things happening to me because I helped someone ten years ago.

One of the best ways to build a network is to establish a reputation as someone who takes care of the people they work with. Generously sharing benefits will eventually come back to you tenfold. Also, learn how to evaluate what people are good at and put them in those roles. (This is the most important thing I learned in management and I haven’t read many relevant books.) You need a reputation for being able to push people to achieve beyond their expected accomplishments, but not to the point of burning them out.

Everyone is better at certain things than others. Define yourself by your strengths rather than your weaknesses. Acknowledge your weaknesses and find ways to work around them, but don’t let them stop you from doing what you want to do. “I can’t do X because I’m not good at Y” is something I often hear from entrepreneurs and it almost always reflects a lack of creativity. The best way to compensate for weaknesses is to hire complementary team members instead of just hiring people who are good at the same things you are.

A valuable part of building a network is being good at spotting undiscovered talent. Learn to quickly recognize intelligence, drive, and creativity – these abilities become much easier to identify with practice. The simplest way to learn is to meet a lot of people and take note of who impresses you and who doesn’t. Remember to focus on seeking progress rather than overemphasizing experience or current achievements.

Whenever I meet someone new, I always ask myself, “Is this person an unstoppable force?” It is a good heuristic for finding people who could potentially achieve great things.

A special case of building a network is finding a well-known person willing to bet on you, preferably early in your career. The best way, unsurprisingly, is to offer as much help as possible. (But remember, at some point you must pay it back!)

Lastly, remember to spend time with positive individuals who support your ambitions.

One of the biggest economic misconceptions of my childhood was that people get rich through “high salaries”. Although there are some exceptions – like entertainers – almost no one on the Forbes billionaire list in history has gotten rich through salaries.

Most people get rich by owning something that appreciates rapidly.

This can be a part of a company, like real estate, natural resources, intellectual property, or something similar. But in any case, you need to have equity in something rather than just selling your time. Time can only be linearly expanded.

The best way to make something appreciate rapidly is to create something that most people want.

Most people are primarily externally driven; they do what they do because they want to impress others. This is bad in many ways, and here are two important reasons.

First, you’ll be working on consensus ideas and consensus career tracks. You’ll care a lot – more than you realize – about whether others think you’re doing the right thing. This can prevent you from doing truly interesting work, and even if you do, others will imitate it.

Second, you often miscalculate risk. You’ll be very concerned about staying in sync with others and not falling behind in the competitive game, even if it’s only in the short term.

Smart people seem to be particularly susceptible to this externally driven behavior. Recognizing this is helpful, but not very – you may have to work very hard to avoid falling into the mimicry trap.

The most successful people I know are primarily internally driven; they do what they do to impress themselves and because they feel it’s necessary to accomplish something in the world. Internal drive is the only force I know that can continue to push you to higher levels of performance once you’ve earned enough money to buy what you want and achieve enough status that it’s no longer interesting.

That’s why a person’s motivation is so important. It’s the first thing I try to understand about someone. The right motivation is difficult to define as a set of rules, but when you see it, you know it.

Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham are my benchmarks. YC was widely mocked in its early years, and almost no one thought it would succeed. But they believed that if it did succeed, it would be good for the world, they enjoyed helping others, and they firmly believed that their new model was better than the existing ones.

Ultimately, you will define your success by doing excellent work in an area that you consider important. The earlier you start in that direction, the further you can go. It is difficult to achieve great success in something you are not obsessed with.

One of the biggest reasons I am excited about basic income is that it will unleash a tremendous amount of human potential and allow more people to take risks.

Before that, if you weren’t born lucky, you had to climb for a while to have the capital to make an attempt. It’s even more difficult if you were born into extreme poverty 🙁

Clearly, the unequal distribution of opportunities is an incredible shame and waste. But I have witnessed enough people born into extremely disadvantageous environments who ultimately achieve amazing success to know that it is possible.

I am deeply aware that if I weren’t born lucky, I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today.