How To Be Successful, according to Sam Altman

"I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter."

Here are his 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success:

Compounding is magic. Look for it everywhere. Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.
 

Self-belief is immensely powerful. The most successful people believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.

Entrepreneurship is very difficult to teach because original thinking is very difficult to teach. School is not set up to teach this—in fact, it generally rewards the opposite. So you have to cultivate it on your own.

Self-belief alone is not sufficient—you also have to be able to convince other people of what you believe.

Most people overestimate risk and underestimate reward. Taking risks is important because it’s impossible to be right all the time—you have to try many things and adapt quickly as you learn more.

Focus is a force multiplier on work.

Focus is a force multiplier on work.

Focus is a force multiplier on work.

You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both—you will be competing with other very talented people who will have great ideas and be willing to work a lot.
 

I believe that it’s easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something exciting and feel that their work matters.

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.
 

Most people understand that companies are more valuable if they are difficult to compete with. This is important, and obviously true.
 

Great work requires teams. Developing a network of talented people to work with—sometimes closely, sometimes loosely—is an essential part of a great career. The size of the network of really talented people you know often becomes the limiter for what you can accomplish.

The biggest economic misunderstanding is that people get rich from high salaries. Though there are some exceptions—entertainers for example —almost no one in the history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a salary.

Most people are primarily externally driven; they do what they do because they want to impress other people. This is bad for many reasons.