Not a post for or against him. I’m just trying to understand how this even makes sense. Maybe I can learn something from it. I don’t know. Basically, his background appears to be 1 year of college education and then he drops out. Then, without much explanation, is somehow able to start up a social media company and gain millions in venture capital. The app fails, but somehow is bought out for millions as well either way. Then somehow gains high status levels in other social media companies like YCombinator and Reddit. Then goes on to co-found something else and OpenAI. I’m seeing this storyline with lots of tech industry leaders. They all seem to have no background or major notable things done. Many even drop out of college. Yet they all somehow then get into some start up at a high level C level job and people are willing to invest millions into someone with no work background, no formal education or expertise in a field, and yet still get millions in funding. What am I missing? How is this possible? Please no troll answers. I’m just trying to understand. There just seems to be a massive gap between how these people go from college drop outs to then ending up at some start up and convincing VC to give them millions.
Effort, intelligence, ability to execute, and salesmanship. You can sprinkle in luck but there is far more wasted talent than lucky talent. And that’s it.
That's it. People like Altman simply never blamed it on luck. They just worked hard and created opportunities for themselves.
You need to understand that 99% of life is luck. You wouldn't be here if you were born in Benin, or dumb, or with some handicap. It's just a long series of luck. Eventually some people find themselves being the luckiest on earth, at the right place at the right time. But even then, he could die tommorow from a stupid car accident.
This
Luck is so underrated
Cuz they had the $$$ from family and had connections ..
Their families are typically rich, which allow them to think different compared to other college students.
For every Sam Altman, there are thousands of unnamed VC funded founders who you’ll never hear about that work 60+ hours week on little to no salary and will eventually head back to school for that SDE 1 job, or worse
He’s a white guy - meritocracy is a lie. Plus he happened to be at the right place at the right time.
Yes, you're a fucking failure because you're not white
Fallacy bot: You’ve committed the false equivalence fallacy. Beep boop beep boop boo.
Entrepreneurs see things differently from employees.
It’s very simple. It is the same reason why Justin Bieber is as big as he is. Is he a better singer, performer than all the millions of nameless artists? There are countless people trying and someone is bound to succeed. It is not pure luck either tho. He has the skills to capture the opportunities, just like Justin Bieber is a good enough artist to capitalize on his shot at fame. It is attitude + aptitude + opportunity. You seem to think attitude and aptitude creates opportunity, and that’s wrong.
Can’t be said any better.
The ability to get other people to work for him. You and many of us engineers complete a higher education degree to be qualified to work for him. He focused on building an ability to get highly qualified people to work for him.
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Women, help me understand why this is inspirational
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Closed now - thank you all
You missed the part where he ran YC
No they didn’t. They said reached high status level in YC and Reddit. (he was ceo of both)