Sam Altman: A jobless year of reading dozens of textbooks was his highest-return move
CatAstro_Piyush · x · 2026-09-24
a16z shared Sam Altman's reflection on one of the highest-return years of his career: a period with no job, spent exploring interests. He read many dozens of textbooks, learned about nuclear engineering, AI, synthetic biology and investing, and met people across fields who were kind enough to teach him. He had no idea these areas would later come together the way they did. He also emphasized simply helping interesting people who needed it.
Related event: Sam Altman calls his jobless exploration year his highest-return period(2 posts)→
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