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by aerosmile 2008 days ago
YC (and by extension, Sam Altman in his past capacity as its President) is not in the business of maximizing the longevity of each and every investment. Instead, they are in the business of maximizing their ROI within a reasonable timeframe (and they are pretty good at it). If that doesn't sound like a good deal to you as an entrepreneur, you should raise your money from elsewhere or avoid raising altogether.

But to claim that Sam Altman doesn't know how to build a business is a bit of stretch. OpenAI seems to be doing quite well.
2 comments
nmfisher 2008 days ago
> OpenAI seems to be doing quite well.

How so? OpenAI is nowhere near turning a profit, it’s a research lab masquerading as a business. It’s alive only due to massive injections of capital from investors (and when they weren’t prepared to fork over any more, Microsoft).

Sam Altman is clearly brilliant at raising capital. I don’t want to downplay the importance of that skill. But selling a product to actual customers for more than it cost to make is a completely separate - and let’s face it, less sexy - endeavour.

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courtf 2008 days ago
It's easy to make money when you have money and thousands of desperate poors begging for the opportunity to bhe your investment vehicle. Sam got lucky and got rich. From there it's all downhill.
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aerosmile 2008 days ago
Nobody would dispute the element of luck in each rich person's journey. Or that the first million is the hardest one. And yet, it does seem that the particularly ambitious, smart and hard working ones tend to get more lucky.

Also, note this quote from Paul Graham [1]:

> 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."

Not to mention that PG still declined him, and Sam refused to leave. Sounds to me like a bit more than just your average lucky kid.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html

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courtf 2008 days ago
Ok, I guess Sam is one of the good ones? I'm not convinced, but my comments haven't all been specific to him anyway.

I'm sure there are ways to lean on the scales and enhance your "luck," but if you don't attribute most of anyone's success to luck you are a fool. How many potential business geniuses died of cholera in the last couple hundred years?

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