Sam Altman // Success
The magnificent Hong Kong skyline during the Symphony of Lights show. My first visit. April 2019.
First Principles from his recent piece on being successful - my comments follow the quotes from his blog. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Before you go, I'd strongly recommend following him! Alright then, lets go :
I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter.
Such an astute observation. Wonder how many decisions would have been different if only we knew the latter beforehand? 🤔
Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.
This I guess leads to this extra question while comparing job or business opportunities is "is this an exponential or linear opportunity?"
For instance, the typical dilemma we face : a leadership role with an exponentially growing small org vs a cushy job in a mega-corp.
Though yes, the luxury to use this scale goes away as one progresses in age, inching towards getting married.
As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results.
Another interesting yardstick to see the "real value" of the next opportunity coming ones way : "Does this role allow me to do more in the same time?"
Because if the answer is no, then regardless of the extra $$ you'll be raking in, if the role needs same time investment, then you aren't really moving up.
And if it demands more time, then you're simply trading off more of your finite resource (time) for $$ - thereby taking the time from your family, health...yourself.
It’s useful to focus on adding another zero to whatever you define as your success metric—money, status, impact on the world, or whatever.
Wow. Just wow. Makes so much sense to apply the famed 10x rule for new businesses to your personal life.
Be willing to let small opportunities go to focus on potential step changes.
Again, learning to say no! to linear, incremental opportunities. For instance, attending conferences 😅
The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.
I think this ties to the fundamental fact that most of us tend to want to escape the rather-drab reality.
So when a leader paints an alternate reality (aka vision), we couldn't help feel charged up to help him succeed in getting all of us to this reality.
Even if the path isn't practical, yet.
Elon Musk is probably the best example for this. What better dream to live by than getting to live on Mars!
If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard to let yourself have contrarian ideas about the future.
Think there are two key takeaways here. One that having a contrarian (and always confirmative) view of the future is a sign that you're truly thinking and not just blindly believing in what you read.
Because nothing is perfect. Not Bitcoin, not Love, not the American Dream. And being able to point these imperfections about anything (not with the intention to despise it though!) indicates that you've truly understood it.
Second, even if you've this perspective about something you wouldn't be able to talk about it. Stand by it. Fight for it, in the face of ridicule (especially from your peers), unless you truly believe in your thinking.
But with the obvious caveat of being open to listen intently to opinions and humbly updating your thinking as and when needed.
And unfortunately, the more ambitious you are, the more the world will try to tear you down.
The world loves status quo. Including us, until we see the why behind the need to shift.
Most highly successful people have been really right about the future at least once at a time when people thought they were wrong. If not, they would have faced much more competition.
Their is no higher order of respect than for those dream a future and make it happen. Even if it's building a home on a hill, while without having a 'reason' to be successful - except grit! (True story of a friend, btw).
And this easily trumps any kind of wealth. Any luxuries. Any jackpot you hit in Las Vegas. This is not what you'll ever be remembered for.
Self-belief must be balanced with self-awareness. I used to hate criticism of any sort and actively avoided it. Now I try to always listen to it with the assumption that it’s true, and then decide if I want to act on it or not. Truth-seeking is hard and often painful, but it is what separates self-belief from self-delusion.
The moment one begins to want to prove your idea instead of the best idea (whoever has it), is the moment one's exponential growth will flatten out. Simple.
One cannot grow or lead without humility. Simple.
Entrepreneurship is very difficult to teach because original thinking is very difficult to teach.
Just one bit to add here : original thinking doesn't strictly imply having completely new ideas, but rather a new way of looking at existing ideas.
Mashing up ideas from different disciplines. Looking at and questioning everything as a 5 year old.
“I will fail many times, and I will be really right once” is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.
Such a massively better rationale for trying our new things, taking fresh risks!
My best advice for communicating clearly is to first make sure your thinking is clear and then use plain, concise language.
Clear of desire for success. Clear of biases. Clear of past achievements.
The best way to be good at sales is to genuinely believe in what you’re selling. Selling what you truly believe in feels great, and trying to sell snake oil feels awful.
Holds true for any conversation I guess?
My other big sales tip is to show up in person whenever it’s important.
The deeper idea being that nothing beats being physically, 100% available for your team, your partner, your family.
Simply because it takes way less thinking, way less self-doubt when trying to approach or trust someone when you can see his/her emotions, his/her face, his/her body language.
Something so profoundly (and rather secretively) important in our decision-making but glaringly missing from all the digital communication channels out there.
Taking risks is important because it’s impossible to be right all the time—you have to try many things and adapt quickly as you learn more.
Haha, another super clear reason to get out of the comfort zone, take small risks and "bet" bigger as one learns.
It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours.
Only that figuring if its the right thing is what takes "many hours".
Working hard at that should be celebrated.
Interestingly, I have seen that once you find work that's your calling and not just a job/work/chore, people around you would want to accomodate that. Even to the extent of going out of their way to help you get there - as long as you're mindful of their presence, obviously.
find work you like doing with people you enjoy spending a lot of time with.
Why? Because we aren't robots. Neither is the hardest worker in any room.
Hard work compounds like interest, and the earlier you do it, the more time you have for the benefits to pay off.
Wish I knew this advice as a teenager.
I believe that it’s easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup.
This is something I have totally come to beleive in, given my first-hand experience as a founder and then as a PM sifting between opportunities.
When people work with you, they're giving you something that cannot be made up for, later : Time.
And harder the startup, bigger the potential reward if it works. And if for some reason it doesn't pan out, the satisfaction of having had something so difficult it got you out of the bed every single morning is the payout.
Follow your curiosity. Things that seem exciting to you will often seem exciting to other people too.
Curiosity is infectious! Most of the people crave for something (anything!) to pique their curiosity in their lives. Something that can lift them out of their mundane routine - even if its a cushy job at Google.
And again, its the emotion that matters more than the actual subject matter.
Almost always, the people who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I’m going to figure them out”, and mean it, go on to succeed.
Its funny how just holding onto this one thought is all one needs. My mom (a self-taught baker) is the best example for me here. She went from knowing nothing to custom designing products with some the toughest ingredients, all because she just knew she needed to hold on.
If what you do can be done by someone else, it eventually will be, and for less money.
Being one of a kind tattoo artist > a Google developer just great at following requirements.
The best way to become difficult to compete with is to build up leverage.
In terms of network, brand, recognition. The same thing that holds for a business. Just applied to one's own self. Super interesting!
The size of the network of really talented people you know often becomes the limiter for what you can accomplish.
And I think this stems from the simple fact that the more talented a person is, the more supportive he will be of your ambitions, your risks, your side-gigs.
And that's probably all you need : people who beleive in you enough to help keep your grit intact, until luck comes your way, isn't?
One of the best ways to build a network is to develop a reputation for really taking care of the people who work with you.
Humans are fundamentally apes. They tend to mimic. And thus they have a tough time not doing what you did to them.
The best way to make up for your weaknesses is to hire complementary team members instead of just hiring people who are good at the same things you are.
Step one towards success always is knowing your weakensses. Step two is accepting them publicly. Something I picked up from my ex co-founder and which has helped me in a huge way.
A particularly valuable part of building a network is to get good at discovering undiscovered talent.
What better way to become friends with someone then recognizing something that he/she didn't even know about themselves?
I try to always ask myself when I meet someone new “is this person a force of nature?” It’s a pretty good heuristic for finding people who are likely to accomplish great things.
Such a perfect framework for gauging your next boss!
A special case of developing a network is finding someone eminent to take a bet on you, ideally early in your career.
People don't bet on people they don't truly believe in.
You get truly rich by owning things that increase rapidly in value
Think crypocurrency over gold.
Time only scales linearly.
In fact, it scales down as you go ahead, with more personal responsibilities piling up at every turn. So if the plan is to get rich or just get somewhere, one gotta to focus on increasing the output exponentially, and not just increasing it by a factor.
Most people are primarily externally driven......This will probably prevent you from doing truly interesting work
"Truly interesting work". The benchmark for work satisfaction!
The most successful people I know are primarily internally driven; they do what they do to impress themselves and because they feel compelled to make something happen in the world.
Because when you're out to prove something, build something that hasn't been done before - you're perhaps the only person on the planet who'd know where you truly stand.
Others will either [1] be overly glad for just about any bit of progrsss you make or [2] drag you into their way of thinking - which is what you're probably up against in the first place.
It is hard to be wildly successful at anything you aren’t obsessed with.
Simply because all wild successes start out as mad projects ridiculed by the same people who later vie to buy a piece of it when it catches fire.
That's about it! Thanks for a taking the time to look at this rather long piece, but I hope it was worth your time. Also, this is my first post on my newly minted blog, so extra grateful :)
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Thanks again!