Sam Altman – OpenAI Founder Reveals His Writing System

David Perell (Host) 00:00.620

i thought it was really interesting in your conversation with joe hudson how you spoke about the way that you've released anxiety from your life how has that changed in your internal state shown up in your thinking

Sam Altman (CEO) 00:16.150

i don't remember who said this but someone i don't even remember if this is a friend this is like a famous quote when someone said like most people can't even let themselves think the interesting thoughts much less say the interesting ideas and i think there is something about

Sam Altman (CEO) 00:28.270

the world that has gone horribly wrong there and i'm sure having like background anxiety running is a process makes it harder to think uh new thoughts

Sam Altman (CEO) 00:41.110

and a focus for sure if you're like a bundle of anxiety and you have like an inner monologue spinning you in all sorts of different directions it's hard to really sit down and focus umm but if you're like constantly self critical if you're constantly saying well a lot of other

Sam Altman (CEO) 00:53.230

people think about this if i you know i think a lot of people have i've i've heard people say things like well that might be an interesting idea but i would like feel embarrassed or foolish to even like tell people that i was thinking about it or working on it like if if you

Sam Altman (CEO) 01:10.510

can't even let yourself like go pretty far down the path of exploring the idea before you worry about what other people are gonna think about it that that seems bad

David Perell (Host) 01:21.070

this idea that you have around people spend so much time trying to think about how to be more productive but you're like hold on hold on hold on let's talk about how to really think about what we're going to work on in the first place yeah how does writing help

Sam Altman (CEO) 01:33.190

you do that so first of all i i i strongly agree that if you have a choice between spending some effort thinking about what's work on versus how to like be a little bit more productive in this new method or that new method with a very you should have a very high bar for doing

Sam Altman (CEO) 01:48.280

anything but thinking about what what to work on i think that's just sort of a higher higher impact than most of the time umm of course that doesn't work all the time it's the point you actually have to go execute but i i i often see people who i think are really talented work

Sam Altman (CEO) 02:06.070

super hard are super productive just not spend much time or surprisingly enough and not really spend anytime at all in a meaningful way thinking about what they're going to work on and i think that's like the high order bit so that's part

Sam Altman (CEO) 02:20.070

one in terms of writing is a way to do that i think of writing as sort of like externalized thinking i i still if i have like a very hard problem or if i feel a little bit confused about something have not found anything better to do than to like sit down and make myself write

Sam Altman (CEO) 02:34.510

it out write out like what i'm you know how i'm thinking about it what i think somebody should be try to like figure out how to explain it to myself or to somebody else so i think it's just like it is a super powerful thinking tool i write for my write things down for myself or

Sam Altman (CEO) 02:50.030

for the most and for like private groups the second most and public at this

David Perell (Host) 02:54.070

point very rarely what are the different parameters of clear communication they're sort of the sloganeering there is a good tagline there's also the depth the idea

Sam Altman (CEO) 03:02.150

maze yeah actually i think clear communication is very much less important and very much downstream of actually clear thinking so if you know what you're going to do if you've and if you've like figured out how to like reduce that to the essence of why it's a good idea and what

Sam Altman (CEO) 03:16.630

the plan is going to be what the priorities are going to be then communicating clearly about that is not so hard but getting clearer about the actual ideas is really hard and so i think unclear communication is a symptom of unfocused thinking for the most part

David Perell (Host) 03:33.510

napoleon he has a line about the importance of clear directives clear communication because when you're on the battlefield you need to be able to articulate things simply and have alignment for the team lots of similarities with what you're

Sam Altman (CEO) 03:49.200

saying i mean i don't think that's just napoleon i think that as i understand it i haven't studied a lot of military history but that's like a pretty common refrain like that seems to have been borne out by history but i also think that's like borne out in business that clarity

Sam Altman (CEO) 04:03.910

speed quality of execution all linked

David Perell (Host) 04:08.300

of all the things that you've written what are you most proud of

Sam Altman (CEO) 04:11.720

this is not false modesty truly none of it writing is not my gift and i'm OK with that like writing is super valuable to valuable to me as a tool for thinking for communicating with internally with the org but there's nothing i i am i hope i will do things a bit like stand the

Sam Altman (CEO) 04:33.790

test of time and matter to the world it's not going to be my writing but that doesn't mean i don't get a lot of value out of it

David Perell (Host) 04:39.830

i think that to give you a little bit more credit maybe the purple prose isn't your gift but a piece like how to be successful really influence

Sam Altman (CEO) 04:50.370

me thank you

David Perell (Host) 04:52.230

i appreciate that to make every next thing that you do be a footnote to what you've done before that's a profound

Sam Altman (CEO) 04:58.030

idea yeah i i mean i think i i hope that like i will contribute some ideas to the world that matter i again i hope all of those matter much less than open AI does but that's nice of you to say so i genuinely appreciate it