It's a great question. Here are two Paul Graham (PG) quotes on Sam Altman (Sama) from 2008 and 2009.

Note, PG is the founder of YC, Sam's former boss, and the one who removed Sam from the position of President of YC after first appointing Sam to succeed him as President of YC. (Sama was more focused on OpenAI than on YC at the time, which doesn't work when you're supposed to be leading YC.)

2008 Essay "A Fundraising Survival Guide" https://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you.

2009 Essay "5 Founders" https://paulgraham.com/5founders.html

5. Sam Altman I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. ... What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.

That's PG's take on Sama.

I would say, looking at a wide range of Sam Altman's more investments https://observer.com/2025/06/sam-altman-startup-investments/

from OpenAI to Helion energy (Fusion), to Retro Biosciences (longevity), Neuralink (brain computer interface), to Reddit

Sama really wants to "build the future," and when some of those investments "hit", like OpenAI did - basically become the first new company with a clear path to a $1T valuation since Facebook or TikTok), you gain immense credibility for "betting the future will happen and getting your organization there first."

If YC's motto is "build something people want," and OpenAI is now serving 800M active users while delivering incredible revenue growth (and investors want to see both). Sama gains power by giving investors what they want, by giving users what they want, and basically authoring an entire new type of software company and a new part of the economy.

A thing to note here is that, being a YC partner and top angel investor from 2011 to 2020, you can argue that Sam himself is "the most successful YC graduate." He saw thousands of companies go through YC. He saw hundreds of 'hard tech companies' go through YC. And in that decade, he could only have learned an immense amount about how VCs/successful CEOs think and make decisions. Certainly, we see the learnings of those experiences in what he's been able to pull off since.

Because, to quote your comment, "their customers are mostly unsophisticated."

And, part of the appeal of the product, is they only pay out if *all of them are in the money. Hence the "lotto-like" return profile.

Well, if 2/3 of SpaceX's current launches are for Starlink (which deploys satellites in LEO), isn't a two-stage, fully reusable vehicle optimized for LEO deployment the thing SpaceX would want to build?

In terms of "free cash flow" expectations, are you aware that approximately 90% of "space" revenue and profit comes from satellite telecom services, with launch services accounting for about 10% of the mix? SpaceX's development of a telecommunications constellation (Starlink) is highly consistent with historical industry patterns of what makes profit in space.

https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/global_satell...

Given that renewable power power is self correlated (all the solar panels are producing at once - or they’re not, all the wind turbines are turning at once - or they’re not) - renewable energy leads to low prices when it’s produced and high prices when it’s not.

Why not put massive, grid scale batteries “behind the meter” at a nuclear or coal plant to enable continual production but only sell power when prices are high and store power when prices are low?

What an insane article. It's almost like he hasn't read Eric Hoffer.

Mass movements arise when populations, that had had large increases in living standards, find their living standards are no longer rising. Hoffer cites something like 30% of the country is now 'middle class' and then depressions etc. set in.

Take the quote, "A society so thoroughly steeped in the work ethic and committed to the pursuit of individual achievement cannot but fail to prepare its members for any other kinds of lives."

The reality is the opposite. When work doesn't pay (i.e. when hard work can't lead to buying a condo/house and starting a family) the original premise of "work hard to get ahead" breaks. And here we are.

Any civilization where two 30 year old elementry school teachers can't buy a 1,200 sq-ft 3bdr/2bath condo for less than 30% of their income - is morally bankrupt. Aka 99% of the bay area, or DC, NYC. So people tern to idleness without the ability for work to result in personal progress.

The solutions are simple: make it easy to build housing. If you're bored, deadlift. Spend time outside. And, most of all, change our national household economics to allow ownership and family formation.