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Productivity
I think I am at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me for productivity tips. So I decided to just write them all down in one place. Compound growth gets...
Sam Altman
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Visit blog.samaltman.com → RSS feedOn Hacker News Mar 2013 – Apr 2026
Tech Industry & Business 79Startups 36Society, Policy & Culture 27Life, Learning & Writing 16Career & Management 14AI & Machine Learning 7
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The days are long but the decades are short
I turned 30 last week and a friend asked me if I'd figured out any life advice in the past decade worth passing on. I'm somewhat hesitant to publish this because I think these lists usually seem...
3
How to Be Successful
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...
4
PG and Jessica
A lot of people want to replicate YC in some other industry or some other place or with some other strategy. In general, people seem to assume that: 1) although there was some degree of mystery or...
5
Founder Depression
If you ask a founder how her startup is going, the answer is almost always some version of “Great!” There is a huge amount of pressure as a founder to never show weakness and to be the...
6
Greg
A lot of people ask me what the ideal cofounder looks like. I now have an answer: Greg Brockman. Every successful startup I know has at least one person who provides the force of will to make...
7
Don't Read the Comments
I sent this email to the current YC batch this morning: I've talked to some of you who are really bummed about negative press coverage or online comments about your company. Often this takes...
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Value is created by doing
Value is created by doing. It’s easy to forget this. A lot of stuff feels like work—commenting on HN, tweeting, reading about other companies’ funding rounds, grabbing coffee, etc [1]—is not...
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How things get done
I’ve heard a lot of different theories about how things get done. I’m interested in this topic, so I pay attention and see how the theories hold up. Here’s the best one: a combination of focus...
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Three Observations
Our mission is to ensure that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) benefits all of humanity. Systems that start to point to AGI* are coming into view, and so we think it’s important to...
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Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
“I’m an ambitious 19 year old, what should I do?” I get asked this question fairly often, and I now have a lot of data on what works, so I thought I’d share my response. Usually, people are...
12
A Question
I have a question for all the people that use their iPhone or Android to complain on Twitter, Facebook, or reddit about the lack of innovation… Or message their friends on WhatsApp or Snapchat...
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What I wish someone had told me
Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are...
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Reflections
The second birthday of ChatGPT was only a little over a month ago, and now we have transitioned into the next paradigm of models that can do complex reasoning. New years get people in a reflective...
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The Strength of Being Misunderstood
A founder recently asked me how to stop caring what other people think. I didn’t have an answer, and after reflecting on it more, I think it's the wrong question. Almost everyone cares what...
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Advice for ambitious 19 year olds (2013)
“I’m an ambitious 19 year old, what should I do?” I get asked this question fairly often, and I now have a lot of data on what works, so I thought I’d share my response. Usually, people are...