Sam Altman: belief

Transcript context

…I believe you said that the best way to create wealth is to start a startup. On the other hand, you are the successor to running Y Combinator. You were almost an apprentice-seeming figure before you took over, which seems almost like the least founderly thing to do. What should we learn from this? Should we start a startup unless we have the option to run Y Combinator? Or what? Look, if you have the option to run Y Combinator, I think that’s a pretty good thing to do. [laughter] The way that Y Combinator generates wealth is still by startups getting started. As the fundamental mechanism, sure, I don’t start them, but I do think I build something that helps them do better. And what I meant more by that statement, you don’t have to start it yourself. You can join as an early employee; you can be an investor. A more precise version of that would be, “The best way to generate wealth is to own a significant piece of the startup.” There are many ways to do that. You can choose to be an investor; you can choose to be an early employee. You don’t have to be a founder. In fact, that’s one thing I think Silicon Valley gets wrong, is either you’re a founder or you suck. That is clearly not the case. But I do think startups are the best way to generate huge amounts of wealth quickly. Next question.…

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