4 ms·

How did he become so rich? His Wikipedia page does not have much details on this.

by mongol 4y ago

naillo 4y ago
I'd imagine he got to invest early in a lot of successful YC companies during his time there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ftxbro 4y ago
Paul Graham is his Les Wexner. "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking 'Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.'" "Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."
- version_five 4y ago
  If anyone has read "Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murukami, there was the idea of being possessed by the sheep which turned one into a forceful business man. I have only met a couple people like this, but as in the quote it's immediately obvious, and you see why they are where they are.
  - gautamcgoel 4y ago
    In my opinion, this book is his most underrated book. It's very funny, highly recommend!
  - maxilevi 4y ago
    > I have only met a couple people like this, but as in the quote it's immediately obvious, and you see why they are where they are. What do you mean by this?
    - version_five 4y ago
      I mean they are successful and it's clear from a short interaction with them why that's the case. And I'm referring to the PG quote above about his impression of Sam Altman.
- jasmer 4y ago
  Loopt was a failure. Political skills. It's a stream of PR, not anything operationally applied, or performant.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I feel I'd take every word of that with a massive grain of salt. It reeks of cult of personality.
  - dilap 4y ago
    I did take it with a huge grain of salt (and an eye-roll) reading it years ago. However, given where sama and OpenAI are today, perhaps pg was right all along!
  - HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
    It seems consistent with anything I've ever read from VCs - success is based on teams/people not the idea (and it's quite common for startups to "pivot" to brand new ideas if one is not getting traction). The Microsoft investment in OpenAI came out of a chance meeting between Altman and Nadella at some conference they were both attending - Altman pitched him on the idea, and was evidentially very persuasive to get that level of investment!
pbw 4y ago
I don't have the source, it was a video interview, but Sam said he has personally invested in around 400 startups. And it says here he employs "a couple of dozen people" to manage his investment and homes. At that scale I think you yourself basically are a venture capital firm.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  You are just describing a rich person, not how he became rich.
  - elorant 4y ago
    Those 400 startups are gradual investments. They didn't all happen overnight. If you have really early access to some very promising startups you don't need a shitton of money to invest in them.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
Parents were rich, sent their child to Stanford and used their connections to let him build connections to other rich people, founded a shitty startup in the middle of a period where any rich kid making a social media company would get bought out for dozens of millions, rest is history. He's always been rich.
- 876978095789789 4y ago
  On Loopt's questionable acquisition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  There’s like 100k people going to undergrad at schools of that caliber at any given time and none of the rest of them founded OpenAI, so this is pretty underdetermined as an account of how sama got where he did.
  - MaxHoppersGhost 4y ago
    And there are probably millions just as smart as him but not as connected and middle or lower class so they’re going to unheard of state schools. This dude had every advantage handed to him + hard work so of course he’s the guy.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
876978095789789 4y ago
He was in the first batch of YC startups with a feature phone location-aware app called Loopt. Once smartphones came along, it became largely obsolete, and started to become irrelevant, but still got acquired under questionable circumstances anyway, enough for Altman to get rich: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 From there he became a VC and ultimately president of YC.
- 876978095789789 4y ago
  I'm not sure if I should elaborate further, but in the last years of Loopt, it actually devolved into a hook-up app servicing the gay community, basically Grindr before Grindr: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178 I guess he was ahead of his time, in a way? Still, I've never forgotten that this silly "success" was the first big exit of the most touted YC founder, ever.
  - sebzim4500 4y ago
    I think that's just being ahead of your time, no qualification needed.
    - 876978095789789 4y ago
      I guess, but I remember even as far back as 2007, pg was excessively touting sama. During an interview, when asked which founder(s) impressed him most, he immediately replied, almost cutting the interviewer off, "Sam Altman." Which struck me as odd then since reddit (same batch) seemed much bigger, and Scribd and Justin.tv (later Twitch) had started to take off. Then there was that "Sam Altman for President" post, announcing him as the next YC president, but the subtext seemed to be that pg thought sama would make a good POTUS as well. Then there was actual talk that Sam would run for Governor: https://www.vox.com/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-column-sam-altman-might-run-governor-california-2018 https://www.vox.com/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-column-s... It's as if his success was predestined. Loopt should have been a failure, but instead it ended up being a successful exit, made him rich(er), and became a stepping stone to greater things.

How did he become so rich? His Wikipedia page does not have much details on this.

by mongol 4y ago

How did he become so rich? His Wikipedia page does not have much details on this.

naillo 4y ago

I'd imagine he got to invest early in a lot of successful YC companies during his time there.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ftxbro 4y ago

Paul Graham is his Les Wexner. "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking 'Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.'" "Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."

version_five 4y ago
If anyone has read "Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murukami, there was the idea of being possessed by the sheep which turned one into a forceful business man. I have only met a couple people like this, but as in the quote it's immediately obvious, and you see why they are where they are.
- gautamcgoel 4y ago
  In my opinion, this book is his most underrated book. It's very funny, highly recommend!
- maxilevi 4y ago
  > I have only met a couple people like this, but as in the quote it's immediately obvious, and you see why they are where they are. What do you mean by this?
  - version_five 4y ago
    I mean they are successful and it's clear from a short interaction with them why that's the case. And I'm referring to the PG quote above about his impression of Sam Altman.
jasmer 4y ago
Loopt was a failure. Political skills. It's a stream of PR, not anything operationally applied, or performant.
bmitc 4y ago
I feel I'd take every word of that with a massive grain of salt. It reeks of cult of personality.
- dilap 4y ago
  I did take it with a huge grain of salt (and an eye-roll) reading it years ago. However, given where sama and OpenAI are today, perhaps pg was right all along!
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
  It seems consistent with anything I've ever read from VCs - success is based on teams/people not the idea (and it's quite common for startups to "pivot" to brand new ideas if one is not getting traction). The Microsoft investment in OpenAI came out of a chance meeting between Altman and Nadella at some conference they were both attending - Altman pitched him on the idea, and was evidentially very persuasive to get that level of investment!

pbw 4y ago

I don't have the source, it was a video interview, but Sam said he has personally invested in around 400 startups. And it says here he employs "a couple of dozen people" to manage his investment and homes. At that scale I think you yourself basically are a venture capital firm.

jeremyjh 4y ago
You are just describing a rich person, not how he became rich.
- elorant 4y ago
  Those 400 startups are gradual investments. They didn't all happen overnight. If you have really early access to some very promising startups you don't need a shitton of money to invest in them.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Parents were rich, sent their child to Stanford and used their connections to let him build connections to other rich people, founded a shitty startup in the middle of a period where any rich kid making a social media company would get bought out for dozens of millions, rest is history. He's always been rich.

876978095789789 4y ago
On Loopt's questionable acquisition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
There’s like 100k people going to undergrad at schools of that caliber at any given time and none of the rest of them founded OpenAI, so this is pretty underdetermined as an account of how sama got where he did.
- MaxHoppersGhost 4y ago
  And there are probably millions just as smart as him but not as connected and middle or lower class so they’re going to unheard of state schools. This dude had every advantage handed to him + hard work so of course he’s the guy.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

876978095789789 4y ago

He was in the first batch of YC startups with a feature phone location-aware app called Loopt. Once smartphones came along, it became largely obsolete, and started to become irrelevant, but still got acquired under questionable circumstances anyway, enough for Altman to get rich: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684357 From there he became a VC and ultimately president of YC.

876978095789789 4y ago
I'm not sure if I should elaborate further, but in the last years of Loopt, it actually devolved into a hook-up app servicing the gay community, basically Grindr before Grindr: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385178 I guess he was ahead of his time, in a way? Still, I've never forgotten that this silly "success" was the first big exit of the most touted YC founder, ever.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  I think that's just being ahead of your time, no qualification needed.
  - 876978095789789 4y ago
    I guess, but I remember even as far back as 2007, pg was excessively touting sama. During an interview, when asked which founder(s) impressed him most, he immediately replied, almost cutting the interviewer off, "Sam Altman." Which struck me as odd then since reddit (same batch) seemed much bigger, and Scribd and Justin.tv (later Twitch) had started to take off. Then there was that "Sam Altman for President" post, announcing him as the next YC president, but the subtext seemed to be that pg thought sama would make a good POTUS as well. Then there was actual talk that Sam would run for Governor: https://www.vox.com/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-column-sam-altman-might-run-governor-california-2018 https://www.vox.com/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-column-s... It's as if his success was predestined. Loopt should have been a failure, but instead it ended up being a successful exit, made him rich(er), and became a stepping stone to greater things.