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Sam Altman

97 statements across 53 episodes · 27 bullish · 31 bearish · 30 people on the record · first statement Mar 14, 2016 by Matt Mazzeo · said 707 times in 189 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Sam Altman's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (289), Jason Lemkin (91), Rory O'Driscoll (23), Max Altman (18), Jonathan Ross (11), Reid Hoffman (10), Andrew Feldman (8), Alex Schultz (8)

tap a year for its mentions
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04080201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
002.540580201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 242 mentions in 54 episodes 4 per episode
2025 297 mentions in 66 episodes 5 per episode
2024 103 mentions in 33 episodes 3 per episode
2023 10 mentions in 10 episodes 1 per episode
2020 10 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
2019 8 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2018 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2017 10 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2016 15 mentions in 6 episodes 3 per episode
2015 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Sam Altman, oldest first

Mar 14, 2016 positive
Assertion Supported
Mazzeo: Y Combinator shares detailed background notes on investors with founders
“I think one of the fantastic things about YC and what Paul and Sam have built is that they, ah, they expose entrepreneurs to more information than ever before. That's not just the deal making terms. That's background on the investors that they're getting into …”
Matt Mazzeo Mar 14, 2016 ▶ 10:46 20VC: Lowercase's Matt Mazzeo on Being Chris Sacca's Partner and The 3 KPIs to Successful Investing
Aug 15, 2016 negative
Opinion
Sam Altman's advice to wait for YC is selfish and poor
“I think that's kind of laughable and actually probably really poor advice for entrepreneurs. Usually I think Sam and YC in general is an amazing program, and they offer lots of benefits and advice. In this particular case, I think they were being a little bit …”
Dave McClure Aug 15, 2016 ▶ 17:11 20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
Nov 2, 2016 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Y Combinator is disrupting venture capital by flipping founder supply and demand
“I think it will. We're starting to see that happen with Y Combinator. There was a great article I just read Profiling Sam Altman in the New Yorker, and I respect what Y Combinator has done, and I'm a big fan of what they've done over the last three to four yea…”
Clinton Foy Nov 2, 2016 ▶ 10:34 20VC: Why You Have To Be A Good Long Term Actor To Succeed in VC & How Owning An Esports Team Could Be A $Bn Outcome with Clinton Foy, General Partner @ Crosscut Ventures
Jan 17, 2018 bearish
Prediction Held up
Sam Altman: Seed-stage venture capital returns will compress overall
“I think this has already happened, but I fully expect the returns of seed stage investing as a whole to compress. I kind of have this model of the world where, Capital slashes around looking for the best return, and when there is a really outsized class or ass…”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 15:51 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 negative
Opinion
Altman: Excess capital funding bad startups harms the overall tech ecosystem
“Like, I think one thing that is bad is very bad companies, not YC companies, of course, but other very bad companies are able to raise money. Are able to raise lots of money that shouldn't, and I think that's bad for everyone. It's bad for the founders of thos…”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 16:25 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018
Insight
Sam Altman: Startup fundraising strategy requires every round to be an up round
“I think one of the immutable laws of fundraising strategy is that every round needs to be an up round. Otherwise, it's really bad, and you don't want to, like, get some price where you... A, have to work with a bad investor, or B, can't get an up round for you…”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 15:21 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altman: Y Combinator operates an unprecedented 17-partner venture model
“But I think one thing that is unusual about YC, and that there is no playbook for, no one's done this, that we can just kind of copy, is that we have, yeah, 17 super talented partners. That is what makes the organization so successful.”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 7:26 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 positive
Opinion
Altman: Benchmark executes the small partnership venture model effectively
“Like, I think it's easy to have three or four really great partners that Work together in one organization, and you see some firms that make the small partnership model work really well, like Benchmark, for example.”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 7:16 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 positive
Insight
Altman: Shadowing founders for a day reveals far more than pitches
“One thing that I would do before making a larger investment was ask if I could shadow the founder for a day or two. At the end of that, spending 12:14 hours a day just watching everything a founder does, I never had questions. I learned so much more doing that…”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 8:20 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Aug 16, 2019
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kan: Sam Altman brought whiskey to celebrate GM acquisition, found team working
“I always think about the time when we announced that we were being acquired by General Motors, which by all means is, you know, a great feat for such a small company at the time. And Sam Altman came into our office to celebrate and he brought a bottle of whisk…”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 14:41 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
May 3, 2023 neutral
Disclosure
Hankes: Sam Altman Pitched OpenAI Round With Closed GPT-4 Demos
“The way we kicked off the round was he did almost like a closed demo with lots of investors on a couple of calls of the technology they're working on and ultimately in GPT-IV.”
Vince Hankes May 3, 2023 ▶ 14:58 Vince Hankes: Why We Put $300M into OpenAI; Sam Altman's Pitch; Lessons from Josh Kushner | E1009 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 15, 2023 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Douwe Kiela: AI Model Parameter Sizes Will Stop Growing Rapidly
“I think Sam Altman had this interesting quote where he was saying that he thought models would stop growing in size. GPT-IV kind of hit this ceiling. I think that's probably right, but not really because size doesn't matter. It's just that data size matters ev…”
Douwe Kiela Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 13:29 20VC: The Biggest AI Leaders on What Matters More; Model Size or Data Size & Where Does The Value in AI Accrue; to Startups or to Incumbents
Jan 29, 2024
Disclosure
Akkina: MITIMCo Passed on an Early Opportunity to Invest in OpenAI
“I mentioned we're investors in YC, and when Sam left YC, around then we also had an opportunity to invest in OpenAI, and we didn't do it. So that's definitely an error of omission that I think about a lot.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 44:31 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 4, 2024 positive
Opinion
Nicolai Tangen says Sam Altman has unique visibility into technology's future
“Because I felt that we were looking into the future, and that he knew what the future was going to look like, and he had, he has more visibility into it than most people, at least for the next kind of three, three, five years.”
Nicolai Tangen Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 23:41 Nicolai Tangen: Managing the Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the World | E1122 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 3, 2024 negative
Disclosure
Stebbings: Prefers Legacy Sectors Over Competing With AI Giants
“For me, it's like a non-competitive industry. I never want to compete against fucking Sam Altman doing foundation models and Dario from Anthropic and Satya at Microsoft. I want, like, legacy architecture. I want, like, high pricing power. I want really, really…”
Harry Stebbings Apr 3, 2024 ▶ 14:08 Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: Long-term AI differentiation will come from personalization, not base models
“I don't think the base model, like that's just, you know, intelligence is just like some emergent property of matter or something. The long-term differentiation will be the model that's most personalized to you, that has your whole life context, that plugs int…”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 20:19 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: Future generations will look back at 2024 as a barbaric era
“I hope that people look back and say, we cannot believe how barbaric they had it in 20, 24 in the same way that we could look back a few hundred years or many hundreds of years and say that same thing.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 52:14 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024
Disclosure
Altman: Leading OpenAI has required sacrificing his entire personal life
“I'm okay with this trade for now, because I know it's not a forever thing, but I have basically, like, run out of time for real life. I don't really get to hang out with friends that much. I don't get to, like, do the normal, like, life stuff.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 49:40 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 negative
Opinion
Altman: Global geopolitical instability is the highest he has ever seen
“The whole thing just feels like way more on the whole situation of the world, the geopolitical thing, the sort of socioeconomic stuff, politics, it feels more unstable to me than it has felt since I've been paying attention. And there's no, like, one thing I w…”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 47:56 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altman: OpenAI's leadership and technical teams skew older than typical startups
“Our leadership team is probably More like thirties and forties than the twenties and thirties you would see at other startups. And I think our technical people skew like slightly older I don't have numbers, but you know, maybe I would guess that like the avera…”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 44:59 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024
Insight
Altman: Entrepreneurs learn far more from moderate success than from failure
“I think you usually don't learn that much from failure. You learn more from success. But I think you also don't learn that much from, like, extreme break all the rules, unrepeatable success either.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 39:43 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: OpenAI will drive the cost of high-quality intelligence near zero
“I think we can drive the cost of a very high quality of intelligence to very near zero, and that will just be phenomenal for most things in the world. Not everything, there will be some negatives, but I think the cost of intelligence is about to get really, re…”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 16:40 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: The frontier AI market will consolidate into roughly a dozen providers
“I think eventually it will shake out. There will be a small number of Providers, just a relatively small number, you know, dozen, something like that, doing models at big scale, and it'll be extremely complex, extremely expensive”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 19:52 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: AGI will be the most important thing I ever touch
“With no false humility, I'm just not an operator by nature. I'm happy to do it, because I, like, really love OpenAI, and I think AGI will be the most important thing I ever touch, but this is not my natural fit.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 15:22 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024
Insight
Altman: Venture investing comes down to one or two decisions a decade
“One of the things that I loved about being an investor was that job is really a job about one or two decisions a year, or maybe one or two decisions a decade.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 13:44 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 positive
Opinion
Altman: Venture capital offers a great quality-of-life trade-off
“For a quality of life job, it's a great, great trade-off.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 15:04 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Altman: Airbnb's Brian Chesky heavily advised OpenAI on product and messaging
“Chesky has been incredibly hands-on and helpful to me over the last year and a half and is really good at a lot of things that I'm not good at, and I've had to, like, come up to speed quickly on how to think about how we talk about our products how to think ab…”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 32:52 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 15, 2024
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: Securing compute and supply chain is OpenAI's biggest five-year challenge
“Doing the best research and the best productization of, like, the best innovation on that stuff over the next 12 months, and was it five years for the second there? Sufficient, like, supply chain and compute.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 47:11 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
Opinion
Blomfield: Sam Altman was distracted at YC by OpenAI from early on
“And then really, honestly, under Sam Altman, I think it expanded in a bunch of different weird areas, and it just lacked strong, and Sam was distracted. He was doing OpenAI from very, very early on.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 1:03:48 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 24, 2024 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sam Altman: AI model market will consolidate into dozens of large providers
“I think eventually it will shake out. There will be a small number of providers, just dozens, something like that, doing models at Big scale.”
Sam Altman May 24, 2024 ▶ 0:22 Sam Altman, Arthur Mensch and more discuss:Which Startups Are Threatened vs Enabled by OpenAI?|E1156 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 24, 2024 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sam Altman: Long-term AI value lies in personalization, not base models
“The long-term differentiation will not be, I don't think the base model, like that's just, you know, intelligence is just like some emergent property of matter or something. The long-term differentiation will be the model that's most personalized to you, that …”
Sam Altman May 24, 2024 ▶ 0:40 Sam Altman, Arthur Mensch and more discuss:Which Startups Are Threatened vs Enabled by OpenAI?|E1156 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2024 positive
Insight
Sam Altman's heuristic for identifying natural ability
“Whatever comes easy to you, but seems hard to other people. Like, that's a good heuristic to identify things that you could be like mu plus two Sigma at compared to the rest.”
Aravind Srinivas Jun 5, 2024 ▶ 2:55 Aravind Srinivas:Will Foundation Models Commoditise & Diminishing Returns in Model Performance|E1161 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2024 neutral
Opinion
Srinivas: Sam Altman doesn't care about profits because OpenAI seeks AGI
“Like Sam Altman doesn't care, but he doesn't care because he's not interested in actually just focusing on product as a business. Like he's trying to build AGI.”
Aravind Srinivas Jun 5, 2024 ▶ 51:43 Aravind Srinivas:Will Foundation Models Commoditise & Diminishing Returns in Model Performance|E1161 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 10, 2024 negative
Opinion
Sam Altman Over-Indexed on AI Safety Advocates for OpenAI's Board
“I think he was making too much of a AI safety, you know, kind of, who are the most AI safety people, make sure they're on the board.”
Reid Hoffman Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 35:17 Reid Hoffman: The Future of TikTok and The Inflection AI Deal | E1163 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 10, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Hoffman Offered to Cover OpenAI Salaries When Elon Musk Departed
“When Elon had announced to the company that he was leaving and not financing it anymore, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, Sam called me, and I said, look, I'll cover the salaries, and on, and he asked me if he joined the board, and I said, yes, …”
Reid Hoffman Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 33:51 Reid Hoffman: The Future of TikTok and The Inflection AI Deal | E1163 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 10, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sam Altman Sought Independent Board Governance Over a Rubber Stamp
“Sam was very very much wanted to have a board that was separate governance from himself. A lot of founders tend to set up as, no, the board is my rubber stamp vehicle.”
Reid Hoffman Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 33:38 Reid Hoffman: The Future of TikTok and The Inflection AI Deal | E1163 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 1, 2024 bearish
Insight
Matt Clifford: CCP Restrictions Hinder China From Producing Untrammeled AGI Founders
“And I think in China, as we've seen in other parts of the tech industry in China, the CCP is very nervous about entrepreneurs being given that much room. And so I think that it's not trivial to create the conditions in which a Chinese Sam Altman or a Chinese D…”
Matt Clifford Jul 1, 2024 ▶ 20:09 Matt Clifford: The Bull & Bear Case for China's Ability to Challenge the US' AI Capabilities | E1172 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024
Insight
Altman defines an AI agent as an autonomous long-duration task executor
“This is like my off the cuff answer. It's not well-considered, but something that I can give a Long duration tasks to, and provide minimal supervision during execution for.”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 9:45 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 negative
Opinion
Altman: Unprecedented AI ecosystem complexity is his single biggest concern
“So, it's, supply chain makes it sign, sound too much like a pipeline, but yeah, the overall ecosystem complexity at every level of, like, the fractal scam is unlike anything I have seen in any industry before. And some version of that is probably my top worry.”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 29:27 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 positive
Insight
Altman: The most impactful AI agents will function like senior co-workers
“The category I think though is more interesting is not the one that people normally talk about where you have this thing calling restaurants for you, but something that's more like a really smart senior co-worker. Where you can, like, collaborate on a project …”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 11:24 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 positive
Opinion
Sam Altman: Open source AI models and integrated APIs will coexist
“There's clearly a really important place in the ecosystem for open source models. There's also Really good open source models that now exist. I think there's also a place for, like, nicely offered, well integrated services and APIs, and, you know, I think it's…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 9:05 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024
Disclosure
Altman: OpenAI faced severe, unknown technical issues early in GPT-4 development
“Well, when we started working on GPT-IV, there were some issues that caused us a lot of consternation that we really didn't know how to solve. We figured it out, but there was definitely a time period where we just didn't know how we were gonna Do that model.”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 25:21 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 bullish
Insight
Altman: Deep Belief in Deep Learning Pays Off Despite Major Setbacks
“There is something about betting on deep learning that feels like being on the side of the angels, and you kind of just, it eventually seems to work out, even though you hit some big stumbling blocks along the way, and so like a deep belief in that has been go…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 26:18 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 negative
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: Entering the AI foundation model race will cost under $100 billion
“No, I think it will cost less than that”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 30:11 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024
Insight
Altman: Leaders should consult specialized expert networks over single advisors
“No I think the wrong way to do that is to have one person you lean on for everything, and the right way to, at least for me, the right way to do it is to have, like, 15 or 20 people, each of which you have come to believe has good instincts and good context in…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 27:42 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 negative
Disclosure
Altman: Product strategy is a personal weakness and current area of uncertainty
“The thing I'm struggling with most this week is I feel more uncertain than I have in the past about what our, like the details of what our product strategy should be. I think that product is a weakness of mine in general and it's something that right now the c…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 35:59 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: Enterprise software pricing could shift from per-seat to compute-based
“I'll speculate here for fun, but we really have no idea. I mean, I could imagine a world where you can say like, I want one GPU or 10 GPUs or a hundred GPUs to just be like churning on my problems all the time. And it's not like, you're not like paying per sea…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 12:10 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024
Insight
Altman: Scaling 10x Requires Reinventing Operations, Not Repeating Past Methods
“One of the things that just came to mind out of, like, a rolling list of a hundred is how hard it is, or how much active work it takes to get the company to focus not on how you grow the next 10%, but the next 10 X. And growing the next 10%, it's the same thin…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 18:59 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 4, 2024 negative
Opinion
Sam Altman: Early-career talent shouldn't lead high-stakes infrastructure engineering
“When you're like designing some of the most complex and massively expensive Computer systems that humanity has ever built, actually like pieces of infrastructure of any sort, then I would not be comfortable taking a bet on someone who is just sort of like star…”
Sam Altman Nov 4, 2024 ▶ 22:20 Sam Altman: What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI & Where is Opportunity | E1223 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 29, 2024 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Podjarny: Architectural issues could stall GPT-5 scale models for 1-2 years
“Expectation of when would the GPT-V scale models arrive? I now think that those are further away. You've sort of seen Sam Altman and others change their tune to talk about reasoning and things like that as the progress, and my sense is there are actually some …”
Guy Podjarny Nov 29, 2024 ▶ 0:12 Guy Podjarny: The Future of AI Software Development - What is Real & What is BS | E1232 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 29, 2024 negative
Opinion
Podjarny: Near-term AGI predictions are convenient because AGI lacks clear definition
“It's a very convenient thing to say because AGI is very poorly defined, and so you can basically say that and pretty much claim it is correct.”
Guy Podjarny Nov 29, 2024 ▶ 6:10 Guy Podjarny: The Future of AI Software Development - What is Real & What is BS | E1232 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 29, 2024 negative
Opinion
Podjarny: Near-term AGI claims correlate with founders' continuous need to raise capital
“I think that's absolutely true. And there's incentives. Incentives are not always nefarious. Sometimes it's just your view of the world is biased by the things that you want to believe.”
Guy Podjarny Nov 29, 2024 ▶ 6:41 Guy Podjarny: The Future of AI Software Development - What is Real & What is BS | E1232 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 9, 2024 bearish
Prediction Held up
Marc Benioff Predicts AGI Will Not Be Achieved in 2025
“I don't think we are in AGI in twenty-twenty-five, so I think that's an optimistic thought.”
Marc Benioff Dec 9, 2024 ▶ 39:21 Marc Benioff, Salesforce Founder: Why Salesforce Isn't Hiring Software Engineers | E1236 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 13, 2024 negative
Opinion
Moubeche: I don't trust OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for a second
“Because this guy is like, so like, I don't trust him like a second. He's been changing his mind. Like so many times”
Guillaume Moubeche Dec 13, 2024 ▶ 1:10:05 Guillaume Moubeche, lempire Founder: Bootsrapping to $30M ARR Through Content & Brand | E1238 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 13, 2025
What-if
Pishevar: Uber allies should have staged OpenAI-style employee revolt for Kalanick
“What I wish I had done or had the wisdom to know to do was what, you know, Sam and his allies did in getting the employees at OpenAI to back Sam and say, if he doesn't come back, we're gonna leave. . It was very powerful, and if we had done that at Uber, becau…”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 1:20:52 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2025
Insight
Sivulka: Great founders have messed up childhoods, are gay, or adopted
“You can bucket great founders into three backgrounds. The most common is that you have kind of a messed up childhood. The second most common would be, ah, you're gay, and the third most common would be you were adopted. Look at like a list of all-time greats. …”
George Sivulka Jan 22, 2025 ▶ 0:00 George Sivulka, Co-Founder & CEO @Hebbia: The Future of Foundation Models | E1250 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 29, 2025 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ross: OpenAI will lose the closed model battle and should open source
“I can't speak for Sam Altman or OpenAI, but if I was in that position, I would be gearing up to open source my models in response. Because it's pretty clear you're gonna lose that, so you might as well try and win all the users and the love from open sourcing.”
Jonathan Ross Jan 29, 2025 ▶ 0:19 Jonathan Ross: DeepSeek Special - How Should OpenAI and the US Government Respond | E1253 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 17, 2025 negative
Opinion
Ross: Musk's OpenAI offer was driven by jealousy of Altman
“Frankly, I think I think Elon was a little jealous that Sam Altman was sitting next to JD Vance, and it wasn't him. And because it was right around the time that Sam Altman was speaking that he announced it.”
Jonathan Ross Feb 17, 2025 ▶ 1:15:04 Jonathan Ross, Founder & CEO @ Groq: NVIDIA vs Groq - The Future of Training vs Inference | E1260 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 17, 2025
What-if
Ross: I would have mocked Musk's OpenAI bid using a Twitter $420 joke
“I would have probably said instead of whatever he said about nine billion, I would have said, yeah, I'm going to take Twitter public at 420 dollars a share.”
Jonathan Ross Feb 17, 2025 ▶ 1:15:22 Jonathan Ross, Founder & CEO @ Groq: NVIDIA vs Groq - The Future of Training vs Inference | E1260 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 19, 2025 neutral
Opinion
Hacker: OpenAI should target search and social media over language learning
“If I was Sam Altman, you know I would go after the big trillion dollar companies. Like, why go, go into, you know, language learning when you can go into search or social media?”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 32:45 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 29, 2025 negative
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: OpenAI will declare AGI based on Microsoft contract negotiations
“It'll achieve open AGI whenever it suits Sam Altman in his negotiations with Microsoft over the open AGI term in that contract to declare it to be AGI. Because it's a meaningless, ill-defined term that will be used for economic leverage.”
Rory O'Driscoll May 29, 2025 ▶ 1:08:05 OpenAI’s $6BN Jony Ive Deal & YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart, and Has Officially Won! · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 26, 2025 positive
Insight
Lemkin: Sam Altman's casual public statements reveal actions OpenAI has executed
“Everything Sam says that seems off the cuff or like on the side or a little futuristic, he's very clearly telling you what's going, he's very direct. And when he says, when you hear that they're thinking about it, He's done it.”
Jason Lemkin Jun 26, 2025 ▶ 1:08:25 Navan Files to Go Public and Canva Pulls the Brakes: Why and What Happens? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 26, 2025 positive
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2025
Rory O'Driscoll: OpenAI will publicly accuse Microsoft of antitrust in 2025
“Accused, by the way, is a wonderfully vague word. Will they file a lawsuit and prevail? Maybe not, but will Sam throw words out? Yeah. That two and a half x on a yes, I'd take that chance.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jun 26, 2025 ▶ 1:07:55 Navan Files to Go Public and Canva Pulls the Brakes: Why and What Happens? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2025 negative
Opinion
Lemkin: Anthropic and OpenAI face harsher safety backlash than Elon Musk
“Elon Musk can get away with this the most. Just because of who he is. Like, it's unacceptable to have a race, to release a racist model to the, like, there's, this is as unacceptable as it gets. But Sam Altman's going to be fried. Anthropic's going to be fried…”
Jason Lemkin Jul 17, 2025 ▶ 34:39 Windsurf x Google x Cognition: Full Breakdown: Who Made Money, Who Did Not · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 28, 2025
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Stebbings: Whatever Sam Altman and Microsoft decide is AGI will define AGI
“I think to be honest, Sam Altman, that's the definition of what AGI is. So whatever him and Microsoft decide is AGI will be AGI.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 28, 2025 ▶ 1:05:34 a16z GP, Martin Casado: Anthropic vs OpenAI & Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 31, 2025 positive
Opinion
Lemkin: Nothing Sam Altman says publicly is flippant or off-the-cuff
“I don't think anything he says is flippant. I don't think it's flippant. I don't think it's off, off, off the cuff.”
Jason Lemkin Jul 31, 2025 ▶ 1:24:14 Why Apple Needs a Management Overhaul & Why Google is Catching Up with Hyperscalers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 bearish
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Sam Altman's $1T AI spending proposal will not pencil out financially
“It's hard for me to imagine it's a trillion, and it's also even harder for me to imagine if it is a trillion that it pencils out.”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 1:08:23 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 28, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: AI scaling laws unlocked $600B in annual CapEx spend
“I think I underestimated the impact of A, the scaling laws in AI and B, the ability of primarily Altman and some other folks to inspire belief in those scaling laws and unlock six hundred billion of CapEx spend a year.”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 28, 2025 ▶ 1:11:41 Anthropic's $10B Round, Klarna's IPO, Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine ft. Marc Benioff · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 1, 2025 negative
Opinion
Frosst: Sam Altman's AI predictions were obviously wrong when made
“I think he has made several predictions now that are wrong, and that were obviously wrong at the time he made them.”
Nick Frosst Sep 1, 2025 ▶ 0:05 Cohere Founder, Nick Frosst: How To Compete with OpenAI & Anthropic, and Sam Altman’s AI Disservice · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 1, 2025 negative
Opinion
Frosst: Sam Altman warning leaders about AI threat was disingenuous
“He did a world tour where he spoke to every major leader the world over to tell them, hey, this technology is gonna pose an existential threat. And I think that was academically disingenuous, and I think did a disservice to the technology he loves.”
Nick Frosst Sep 1, 2025 ▶ 0:13 Cohere Founder, Nick Frosst: How To Compete with OpenAI & Anthropic, and Sam Altman’s AI Disservice · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 1, 2025 negative
Opinion
Frosst: Sam Altman's AGI timeline hype does a disservice to the world
“I don't think Sam Altman has done a service to the world by talking about how close AGI is.”
Nick Frosst Sep 1, 2025 ▶ 1:05:18 Cohere Founder, Nick Frosst: How To Compete with OpenAI & Anthropic, and Sam Altman’s AI Disservice · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 15, 2025
Insight
AI startup durability depends on whether better models improve or ruin them
“I really like the thing Sam Altman says of, will models being dramatically better in one to two years improve your business or worsen it? I think that that is, in so many ways, the most important question to see if you're building a business that's durable and…”
Brendan Foody Sep 15, 2025 ▶ 56:17 Mercor CEO & Co-Founder, Brendan Foody: How They Grew from $1M to $500M in 17 Months · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 25, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Sam Altman fulfills predictions much faster than Elon Musk
“Elon Musk will say something, and it happens. He's just like a couple of years off, right? But it always happens. The self-driving cars and the rockets, right? Sam says something, and it happens, like, kind of soon”
Jason Lemkin Sep 25, 2025 ▶ 2:58 The Impact of H1B Visas on Startups in the US & NVIDIA Invests $100BN Into OpenAI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 9, 2025 positive
Assertion Partly supported
O'Driscoll: Sam Altman took 10% of AMD for chip purchasing privileges
“Sam Altman understands power. He has more power than AMD, so he took 10% of their company for the privilege of selling stuff to him.”
Rory O'Driscoll Oct 9, 2025 ▶ 0:01 OpenAI's Multi-Billion Deal with AMD & Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 9, 2025 neutral
What-if
Lemkin: xAI would not exist without Elon Musk's grudge against Sam Altman
“I don't know if XAI would exist if it wasn't for his bone to pick with Sam Altman. He might not have bothered. He might have just gotten to Mars faster.”
Jason Lemkin Oct 9, 2025 ▶ 11:45 OpenAI's Multi-Billion Deal with AMD & Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 30, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Sam Altman receives zero equity in OpenAI's corporate restructuring
“They're a little interesting, but the craziest thing in this deal, because it's unprecedented, I think in our lifetimes is OpenAI said that Sam Altman will still have no shares in the combined entity.”
Jason Lemkin Oct 30, 2025 ▶ 3:44 OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 13, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Sam Altman Says OpenAI Will Hit $20B ARR This Year
“Altman says OpenAI is going to hit twenty billion ARR this year.”
Harry Stebbings Nov 13, 2025 ▶ 13:32 Michael Burry Shorts NVIDIA and Palantir & Has Defensibility Died in a World of AI? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 21, 2025
Disclosure
Max Altman left family funds to launch Saga Ventures out of ego
“So I, you know, I left after doing three funds with some combination of Sam and Jack to build out my own firm just for ego and pride, to be completely honest.”
Max Altman Nov 21, 2025 ▶ 11:43 20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster
Nov 21, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Max Altman avoids asking brother Sam Altman for OpenAI roadmap leaks
“I don't want to put him in a weird position where he's leaking anything. It just, it doesn't seem like good for OpenAI, and it doesn't feel good. Like, I kind of want, and you might say this is stupid, to like, earn this on my own right.”
Max Altman Nov 21, 2025 ▶ 58:03 20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster
Jan 8, 2026 neutral
Opinion
Lemkin: Sam Altman's zero equity stake leaves him unbothered by dilution
“Sam just wants to build the biggest, greatest AI planet on planet Earth, and if he dilutes everyone, 99%, it doesn't impact him at all as a shareholder.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 38:56 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2026 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Sam Altman owns two percent of Stripe
“He personally owns two percent of Stripe.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 22, 2026 ▶ 34:11 Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2026 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
O'Driscoll: Musk and Altman Donated $30M+ and $10M to OpenAI
“You know, Elon shipped in thirty million plus, Sam Altman shipped in 10, Reid Hoffman.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 22, 2026 ▶ 25:23 Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2026 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Musk-Altman Lawsuit Will Be an Ongoing Public Spectacle
“It's going to be the gift that keeps on giving. If you're the kind of person who slows down at a traffic accident, in other words, if you're like, 90% of humanity, you're gonna be slowing down every time the depots come out.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 22, 2026 ▶ 0:23 Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 5, 2026 neutral
What-if
O'Driscoll: Musk's death would cut Tesla 80%, Altman's cuts OpenAI 25%
“Tesla trades at a trillion today. I think if Elon died tomorrow, they traded two hundred billion. OpenAI trades at eight hundred billion today. I think if Sam Altman died tomorrow morning, we traded six hundred billion.”
Rory O'Driscoll Mar 5, 2026 ▶ 29:15 Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round | Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 2, 2026 neutral
Opinion
Stebbings: OpenAI should acquire Sierra and make Bret Taylor CEO
“It's the best thing for OpenAI not to buy Sierra, incorporate that as a customer support product, and have Brett Taylor come in as the day-to-day CEO, and Sam can be fundraiser, Sam can be master of...”
Harry Stebbings Apr 2, 2026 ▶ 15:33 OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 30, 2026 negative
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Compute without a good model yields no revenue, citing Grok
“No compute equals no revenue, but compute and a shitty model also equals no revenue. See Grok for details, right?”
Rory O'Driscoll Apr 30, 2026 ▶ 24:56 Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 7, 2026 negative
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Sam Altman holding zero equity in OpenAI is a mistake
“The most surprising thing is Sam Altman's worth zero on this, right, which I still think is weird and a mistake.”
Rory O'Driscoll May 7, 2026 ▶ 1:21:23 Anthropic's Raise & What It Means for Potential IPO? Mag7: Google & Amazon Up, Meta & Microsoft Down · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Weitzman: Sam Altman has raised more money than anyone in Silicon Valley history
“No one has raised as much money as Sam Altman in the history of Silicon Valley like that.”
Cliff Weitzman May 9, 2026 ▶ 1:43:54 Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2026
Insight
Stebbings: Younger generations use AI as an operating system for life
“I think Sam Altman said it very well when he said, you know, older people use it as a replacement to Google and younger people use it as their operating system for life.”
Harry Stebbings May 9, 2026 ▶ 1:57:24 Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 21, 2026
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Altman Offered $2M in OpenAI Tokens to Every YC Startup
“Sam Altman just offered two million dollars In open AI tokens to every YC startup in the current batch in exchange for equity.”
Harry Stebbings May 21, 2026 ▶ 1:02:36 Anthropic Raises $30BN at $900BN Price | SpaceX Files S1: How Does it Trade | Cerebras Smashes Day 1 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 21, 2026 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Politicians will punish Sam Altman and AI industry within 3 years
“And the people who are utter morons at AI but brilliant at politics are going to have us for lunch. That's the movie in the next three years. They're going to have Sam for lunch because he's lied to them as far as they're concerned, and they're going to have t…”
Rory O'Driscoll May 21, 2026 ▶ 1:19:25 Anthropic Raises $30BN at $900BN Price | SpaceX Files S1: How Does it Trade | Cerebras Smashes Day 1 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 26, 2026 positive
Opinion
Feldman says Sam Altman and Elon Musk uniquely envision 500-gigawatt AI infrastructure
“And by the way, that, that is exactly where, where I think Sam is the best in the world. Maybe Elon is where everybody else's brain shuts down, right? When you're trying to think about a hundred gigawatts or 500 gigawatts, those guys, they have sort of this ab…”
Andrew Feldman May 26, 2026 ▶ 25:50 Cerebras CEO on the Future of Data Centres, Token Costs & Memory | Should US Companies Sell to China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 20, 2026 neutral
Disclosure
Petersen: Sam Altman Was One of Flexport's Earliest Investors
“Sam was one of our early, earliest investors”
Ryan Petersen Jun 20, 2026 ▶ 58:03 Flexport CEO: Two Questions Every Founder Needs to Ask · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 16, 2026 bearish
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2029
Lemkin: OpenAI will likely cancel or pause its hardware project
“Listen, if I had to breathe the tea leaves, hardware is probably on the bubble. This was one of Sam's initiatives that made sense when everything was working and OpenAI had an unassailable lead over, over its competitors, right? Now everything's, you know, we …”
Jason Lemkin Jul 16, 2026 ▶ 8:01 Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 2, 2026 positive
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Stebbings: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei will successfully lobby for AI restrictions
“I just think Sam Altman is someone who I would never, ever bet against, and I think he's the best politician in the world, and I think when he says something, he says it with intent, and when he says we should give five percent away to the administration, he's…”
Harry Stebbings Aug 2, 2026 ▶ 19:23 Arena CEO: There Will be a $100BN US Open-Source Model & Data is a Trillion Dollar Market
Aug 22, 2026 negative
Opinion
Murdock: Giving US Government Frontier AI Stakes Is Purely Political
“I mean, it makes sense if like a Manhattan style project, if we did that for AI 10 years ago, well, fine, you know, do it because it's strategically important to the country. But today, given the size of them, I think the only reason you do it is For political…”
Jerry Murdock Aug 22, 2026 ▶ 50:32 The AI Bubble WILL Burst | Should we be fearful of Chinese Open-Source | Jerry Murdock
Sep 3, 2026 positive
Opinion
OpenAI Made the Right Strategic Decision in Cutting Off Cursor
“My guess is this was the right move for open AI. Like you go from someone that was both a partner and a competitor, right. And keeping them honest to someone that's now a direct competitor. And if it's only five percent anyway, Sam's losing no money. There's n…”
Jason Lemkin Sep 3, 2026 ▶ 13:55 NVIDIA Crushes Quarter | OpenAI Cuts Off Cursor | Instinct Hits $2.5B Valuation
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