Over the past few years, Sam Altman went from relative obscurity as the co-founder of the failed 2005 social networking app Loopt to the President of Y Combinator, a venture capital firm focused on funding tech startups. He landed a spot on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, and then a year later, co-founded OpenAI with Elon Musk.
But even OpenAI wasn't exactly high profile until somewhat recently. Last year, the company launched ChatGPT, the product responsible for bundling artificial intelligence into a consumer-facing product. It amassed 100 million users in just two months and has gone on to violently disrupt just about every industry as the world begins to prepare for an AI-driven future.
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And Altman, as the CEO of OpenAI, aims to be at the center of that future.
But well before he was Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, he gave a talk on startups, sharing the really difficult part of leading a company to success (which so happens to be the most important component of finding success in the startup sector).
"Execution is the hard part of a business. These other things happen pretty quickly; if these other things take six months, this is what takes the next nine and a half years," Altman said. "It is the relentless waking up every day and banging your head against the wall until things work."
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Altman said that the biggest mistake founders make is that they think they can hire someone else to handle the running of the business (and all that head-banging).
80 second MasterClass for Founders
— Linus (●ᴗ●) (@LinusEkenstam) August 10, 2023
You need this. It’s so simple. Sam delivers some solid points.
“100% of the time this fails”
Thanks for the wisdom Altman. pic.twitter.com/lEuYsiIQE9
"Obviously, that fails 100% of the time. Value gets created over compounding execution for years and years and years," Altman said. "And it never gets easier, but this is what you're signing up for as a founder."
He added that "very little of the value gets created by the idea," saying instead that most of the value of a company is created by the execution of the corporation, not the development of a product.
"People say that most of what being a founder is about is not being in love with creating a product but being in love with creating a company," he said. "And I think there's a lot of truth in that. You shift from the great idea and the great product to great execution, and this is a shift that a lot of founders fail to make."
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