Sam Altman: Holding Non-Consensus Conviction Was Key to OpenAI's Success
SucceededMind · x · 2026-07-30
Sam Altman shared his top advice for founders: find things you can develop reasonable conviction in that conventional wisdom deems wrong. He admitted that at OpenAI, it felt like they knew the world's biggest secret while everyone else called them idiots.
Though frustrating at the time, he views this dismissiveness as an incredible gift because it meant lacking massive competitors and having the time to build. He noted that starting the same startup as everyone else might bring hype and funding, but rarely leads to massive outcomes.
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