Sam Altman calls his jobless exploration year his highest-return period

In a 2018 interview resurfaced by a16z, Sam Altman said one of his highest-return periods was a jobless year spent reading dozens of textbooks across nuclear engineering, AI, synthetic biology and investing, which planted seeds for future opportunities.

2026-09-23 ~ 2026-09-24 · 2 related posts

• Sam Altman on his highest-return year: dozens of textbooks, helping people, planting seeds — a16z · 2026-09-23
• Sam Altman: A jobless year of reading dozens of textbooks was his highest-return move — CatAstro_Piyush · 2026-09-24