Sam Altman's 'How To Be Successful', Quoted

Sam Altman's essay How To Be Successful gives 13 ideas for what he calls outlier success, starting with compounding. "Compounding is magic", he writes. "Look for it everywhere."

He sets out where the ideas come from in the first line: "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." This post covers the essay's main points in his words. Each quote links to the original post.

Who is the essay for?

Altman is upfront about its scope. Everything in it, he writes, "is easier to do once you've already reached a baseline degree of success (through privilege or effort) and want to put in the work to turn that into outlier success." He adds: "But much of it applies to anyone."

1. Compound yourself

The first idea sets the frame for the rest:

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

He applies it to careers as well as businesses: "You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory." That means being "willing to let small opportunities go to focus on potential step changes", and taking a long view, because "One of the notable aspects of compound growth is that the furthest out years are the most important."

2–4. Self-belief, independent thought and sales

"Self-belief is immensely powerful." Altman pairs that line with a check: "Truth-seeking is hard and often painful, but it is what separates self-belief from self-delusion." Self-belief also isn't enough on its own: "you also have to be able to convince other people of what you believe", which is why he counts getting good at "sales" as a skill.

5. Make it easy to take risks

His observation here is short: "Most people overestimate risk and underestimate reward." He points to what makes risk feel hard, noting that people "have an incredible ability to always match their lifestyle to next year's salary".

6–7. Focus and work hard

On focus, Altman opens with "Focus is a force multiplier on work." Then:

"Almost everyone I've ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours."

On effort, he separates good from exceptional: "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". He also writes that "work stamina seems to be one of the biggest predictors of long-term success."

8–9. Be bold and be willful

Altman argues "it's easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup." On willfulness, he writes: "People have an enormous capacity to make things happen." He adds: "A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential."

10–12. Be hard to compete with, build a network, own things

He applies a familiar business idea to people: "Most people understand that companies are more valuable if they are difficult to compete with." Ways to do it for yourself include "building a strong personal brand, or by getting good at the intersection of multiple different fields."

On networks: "The size of the network of really talented people you know often becomes the limiter for what you can accomplish."

And on money:

"The biggest economic misunderstanding of my childhood was that people got rich from high salaries."

His alternative: "somehow or other, you need to own equity in something, instead of just selling your time."

13. Be internally driven

The essay ends on motivation. "Most people are primarily externally driven; they do what they do because they want to impress other people." By contrast:

"The most successful people I know are primarily internally driven; they do what they do to impress themselves and because they feel compelled to make something happen in the world."

He gives the reason it matters: once money and status stop being fun to get more of, "this is the only force I know of that will continue to drive you to higher levels of performance."

The short version

• Look for compounding everywhere, including in your own career.
• Pair self-belief with truth-seeking, and learn to convince people.
• Focus on the right thing before working hard on it.
• Make yourself hard to compete with, and own equity rather than only selling time.
• Be driven by what impresses you, not others.

This post reports what Sam Altman wrote in one essay. To look up what he, Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, Naval or Warren Buffett wrote on your own question, you can ask Mímir. Each answer cites the original essay or letter.