Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Want You to Build Another ChatGPT

am Altman was the kid who hacked into Stanford’s mainframe, driven by a relentless obsession with technology. By 19, he’d dropped out to launch his first startup, Loopt, betting big on a location-based social app.

It didn’t become the next big thing, but it set the stage for a career that would lead him to co-found OpenAI, where he’s now shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

In a recent conversation, Altman traced his path from early struggles to global impact, sharing raw lessons on ambition, the grind of resilience, and why there’s never been a better time to start a company. Here’s his story—and what it means for anyone looking to build something that matters.

The Early Days: Curiosity and Conviction

Altman’s tech journey began with audacity. Breaking into Stanford’s mainframe wasn’t just a teenage stunt—it was a sign of a mind that couldn’t resist pushing boundaries. That curiosity fueled his decision to leave Stanford at 19 to start Loopt.

The startup wasn’t a runaway success, and Altman is candid about it:

“My first startup didn’t work that well.” But failure taught him something critical—startups don’t always work out, and that’s okay.

What matters is learning to keep going. “Learning how to keep going through that is really important,” he says, reflecting on the resilience that carried him forward.

Those early years shaped his philosophy: trust your instincts and refine them over time. “Developing trust in your own instincts and increasing that trust as you refine your decision-making” became a cornerstone of his approach.

It’s a lesson he wishes he’d learned sooner, along with the importance of “conviction and resilience over a long period of time.”

Building something big, he says, often feels like “one dumb foot in front of the other for a long time.” Pick a market with potential, and just keep moving.

Building OpenAI: From Grind to Global Impact

OpenAI’s rise wasn’t a straight line. It was a slog, built on persistent steps and a willingness to bet on ideas others overlooked.

“Courage to work on stuff that is out of fashion but is what you believe and what you care about” guided Altman as he co-founded OpenAI in 2015.

Today, ChatGPT and OpenAI’s APIs are transforming how people work and live. “How people use ChatGPT has changed a lot,” Altman notes. “People are starting to use ChatGPT as this operating system with everything, with their whole lives in it.”

Leading OpenAI hasn’t been easy. The weight of global scrutiny tests even the strongest resolve. Altman admits the hardest moments come when “your reserves kind of wear down.”

His antidote? Surround yourself with people you love working with and hold fast to the belief that it’ll work out.

That conviction has driven OpenAI to push boundaries, from integrating with countless data sources to building AI that’s proactive, not just reactive. Imagine an “entity that gets to know you,” Altman says, one that’s “running all the time,” knowing when to send a message or act on your behalf across devices and services.

The AI Revolution: Cheaper, Smarter, Everywhere

Altman’s excitement about AI’s future is palpable. OpenAI is gearing up to release an open-source model that he believes will “astonish” people, especially with its ability to “run incredibly powerful models locally.”

Costs are dropping fast—last week, their o3 model cost five times what it does now—and Altman predicts this will continue. “People will be astonished at how much the price per performance falls,” he says, hinting at a world where AI is more accessible than ever.

Reasoning models like o3 and o4 mini are opening new doors. “Only in the last month have we really started to see startups that are saying, ‘Okay, reasoning models are different, the whole interaction model is different,’ and really building for that,” Altman observes.

These models don’t just respond—they think, enabling products that feel like a new “square on the periodic table.” Looking ahead, he envisions a unified, multimodal model—think GPT-5 and beyond—that can “reason when it needs to and generate real-time video when it needs to.”

Such a model, he says, “will feel like a real new kind of computer interface,” blending perfect coding, video, and deep reasoning.

Then there’s robotics. Altman believes we’re “not that far away” from robots doing “super useful stuff” in the real world. He’s intrigued by a big question: “How many robots do you need to fully automate the supply chain?”

A million humanoid robots, he muses, could run mining equipment, container ships, and factories, potentially scaling rapidly. The demand for such robots, he adds, “will be far more than we know how to think about with the current supply.”

Don’t Build ChatGPT—Build What’s Missing

Altman’s bluntest advice for founders is to steer clear of copying ChatGPT.

“This is the same for every moment that I’ve seen in startup history,” he says.

“People get excited about the same thing at the same time, and so rather than go build the thing that you have thought of that is not what everybody else is doing, we are very social creatures and we get very influenced by what other people are doing.”

He bets that if you listed the five most popular AI startup ideas, half the room would be working on them. But the next big thing won’t come from that crowd.

“There is hopefully in this room the person who’s going to start a company that is much bigger than OpenAI someday, and I would bet that person is not working on any of the five,” he says.

Building something defensible is tough when everyone’s chasing the same goal. “The best, most enduring companies are usually not doing the same thing as everybody else,” Altman emphasizes.

That uniqueness buys you time to perfect your product and find your edge. Instead of joining the herd, he urges founders to explore uncharted problems where true innovation can thrive.

One Person’s Leverage in the Next Decade

AI is amplifying what a single person or small team can achieve, and Altman sees this as a game-changer. “One person can do way more than they could before, and this has been going on for a long time,” he says.

“If you compare a person today from a person 100 or thousand years ago, one person is incredibly more capable.” AI is the latest layer in this progression, offering tools that empower individuals like never before.

“What someone can do now with this new set of tools, with this new layer that’s been built in, is pretty incredible,” he notes.

Over the next decade, “one of the things that will feel most different is how much a single person or a small group of people with a lot of agency can get done.” This isn’t just about building more—it’s about bypassing the “huge” coordination costs of large teams.

The result? “A real step change” in the quality and impact of what one person or a small team can create, from startups to societal contributions. At OpenAI, Altman saw this firsthand: “a key few tens of people” drove transformative work.

His advice to founders: trust that it’ll work out, refine your instincts, and find a team you love. “Find people you like working with and do something that matters,” he says. It’s a simple formula, but in a world where AI is unlocking unprecedented potential, it’s one worth betting on.