3 ms·

>A good example of how just having your foot in the door creates serendipitous opportunity in life. Sounds like Altman's biography.

renegade-otter 3y ago
Altman's bio is so typical. Got his first computer at 8. My parents finally opened the wallet for a cheap E-Machine when I went to college. Altman - private school, Stanford, dropped out to f*ck around in tech. "Failed" startup acquired for $40M. The world is full of Sam Altmans who never won the birth lottery. Could he have squandered his good fortune - absolutely, but his life is not exactly per ardua ad astra.
- dmix 3y ago
  > Altman's bio is so typical. Got his first computer at 8. My parents finally opened the wallet for a cheap E-Machine when I went to college. I grew up poor in the 90s and had my own computer around ~10yrs old. It was DOS but I still learned a lot. Eventually my brother and I saved up from working at a diner washing dishes and we built our own Windows PC. I didn't go to college but I taught myself programming during a summer after high school and found a job within a year (I already knew HTML/CSS from high school). There's always ways. But I do agree partially, YC/VCs do have a bias towards kids from high end schools and connected families.
  - renegade-otter 3y ago
    I am self-taught as well. I did OK. My point is that I did not have the luxury of dropping out of school to try my hand at the tech startup thing. If I came home and told my Dad I abandoned school - for anything - he would have thrown me out the 3rd-floor window. People like Altman could take risks, fail, try again, until they walked into something that worked. This is a common thread almost among all of the tech personalities - Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk. None of them ever risked living in a cardboard box in case their bets did not pay off.
    - axpy906 3y ago
      Jobs was a bit different as his adopted father was a mechanic. He was not from a wealthy family. Altman reminds me of Sam Bankman-Fried but dropping out.
      - renegade-otter 3y ago
        That's fair. Very unconventional for people to go just to India for seven months to trip and look for inspiration, though - know what I mean? :)
itchyouch 3y ago
I get the impression based on Altman's history as CEO then ousted from both YCombinator and OpenAI, that he must be a brilliant, first-impression guy with the chops to back things up for a while until folks get tired of the way he does things. Not to say that he hasn't done a ton with OpenAI, I have no clue, but it seems that he has a knack for creating these opportunities for himself.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Did YCombinator oust him? Would love to hear that story.

renegade-otter 3y ago

Altman's bio is so typical. Got his first computer at 8. My parents finally opened the wallet for a cheap E-Machine when I went to college. Altman - private school, Stanford, dropped out to f*ck around in tech. "Failed" startup acquired for $40M. The world is full of Sam Altmans who never won the birth lottery. Could he have squandered his good fortune - absolutely, but his life is not exactly per ardua ad astra.

dmix 3y ago
> Altman's bio is so typical. Got his first computer at 8. My parents finally opened the wallet for a cheap E-Machine when I went to college. I grew up poor in the 90s and had my own computer around ~10yrs old. It was DOS but I still learned a lot. Eventually my brother and I saved up from working at a diner washing dishes and we built our own Windows PC. I didn't go to college but I taught myself programming during a summer after high school and found a job within a year (I already knew HTML/CSS from high school). There's always ways. But I do agree partially, YC/VCs do have a bias towards kids from high end schools and connected families.
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  I am self-taught as well. I did OK. My point is that I did not have the luxury of dropping out of school to try my hand at the tech startup thing. If I came home and told my Dad I abandoned school - for anything - he would have thrown me out the 3rd-floor window. People like Altman could take risks, fail, try again, until they walked into something that worked. This is a common thread almost among all of the tech personalities - Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk. None of them ever risked living in a cardboard box in case their bets did not pay off.
  - axpy906 3y ago
    Jobs was a bit different as his adopted father was a mechanic. He was not from a wealthy family. Altman reminds me of Sam Bankman-Fried but dropping out.
    - renegade-otter 3y ago
      That's fair. Very unconventional for people to go just to India for seven months to trip and look for inspiration, though - know what I mean? :)

itchyouch 3y ago

I get the impression based on Altman's history as CEO then ousted from both YCombinator and OpenAI, that he must be a brilliant, first-impression guy with the chops to back things up for a while until folks get tired of the way he does things. Not to say that he hasn't done a ton with OpenAI, I have no clue, but it seems that he has a knack for creating these opportunities for himself.

ipaddr 3y ago
Did YCombinator oust him? Would love to hear that story.