Sam Altman, every mention

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every year anyone Jared Friedman 13Garry Tan 11Carolynn Levy 11Geoff Ralston 7David Lieb 6Jason Kilar 4Spencer Skates 3Michael Seibel 3Jessica Livingston 3Diana Hu 3

Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Sam Altman comes up

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World Models, JEPA And The Path To Sample-Efficient RL · Y Combinator Jul 17, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:06:50 unnamed speaker I think Sam Altman just kind of came and just said that he thinks that there's definitely an architecture that's going to be more performant than the transformer.

Paul Graham, Founder of Y Combinator, Live from Stockholm · Y Combinator May 13, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 9:24 Paul Graham Surprisingly often, you'll see Brian Chesky or Sam Altman, right, and think to yourself, all right,

Replit's CEO On The Only Two Jobs Left In The Company Of The Future · Y Combinator Apr 25, 2026 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 19:41 Amjad Masad So when we, when we came in and Sam stood, uh, uh, when he was still running it, Sam stood in front of the batch and said, 3 times in the scene

François Chollet: Why Scaling Alone Isn’t Enough for AGI · Y Combinator Mar 27, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 41:46 unnamed speaker We've all here heard of the OpenAI founding story, and something that's always struck with me is just like both Sam and Greg say that it was a little odd in the early days because they didn't actually know what to do.

The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces · Y Combinator Mar 9, 2026 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 44:47 Max Hodak Got an email one night in early, um, from Sam, uh, subject line, crazy question. 2 times in the scene

The Truth About The AI Bubble · Y Combinator Dec 22, 2025 · 1 mention

How Amplitude Went From Skeptics to “All In” on AI · Y Combinator Dec 3, 2025 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 12:01 Spencer Skates Um, I, I mean, it's going to sound extraordinarily reductive, but I, I think, I think Sam Altman is the best salesperson of, of this generation by no bar none. 3 times in the scene

The Best Consumer Startup Ideas Were Impossible Until Now · Y Combinator Nov 28, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 21:16 Mike Mignano One of the roles is just to consume and let the model train on your interests, but maybe the more interesting thing, and we've sort of seen hints of this with Sora, I think Sam published a blog post that kind of hinted at this, is kind of…

From Idea to $650M Exit: Lessons in Building AI Startups · Y Combinator Oct 28, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 7:15 Jake Heller When you replace or substantially assist certain jobs, like people used to, Sam Altman wrote about this in a recent essay, people used to have a job called lamp lighters, where we didn't have like, you know, electricity and lights.

Aaron Levie: Why Startups Win In The AI Era · Y Combinator Sep 16, 2025 · 4 mentions

Michael Truell: Building Cursor At 23, Taking On GitHub Copilot & Advice To Engineering Students · Y Combinator Sep 3, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:59 Michael Truell And, uh, Sam's essays too, also, and a bunch of the folks in YC, and that was definitely a big inspiration, even from the very early stages of, of high school.

Dylan Field: Scaling Figma and the Future of Design · Y Combinator Aug 8, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 16:21 Dylan Field Uh, but Sam is one of those people that, you know, he's, he's right about a lot of stuff, so I, I would encourage you if you just dismissed it outright,

Aravind Srinivas: Perplexity's Race to Build Agentic Search · Y Combinator Jul 11, 2025 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 2:58 David Lieb Um, I think if Sam Altman were still on the stage today, he would say, 2 times in the scene

How to Spend Your 20s in the AI Era · Y Combinator Jul 8, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 10:04 Jared Friedman I think that's why Sam said at the beginning of the, of the event yesterday, this is the best fucking time in history to start a company.

Cursor CEO: Going Beyond Code, Superintelligent AI Agents, And Why Taste Still Matters · Y Combinator Jun 11, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 22:26 Garry Tan It sounds extra prescient in that Sam Altman sat in this chair maybe a year ago and talked about how if you're betting against the models getting smarter, that's bad.

How Zepto Became India’s Fastest Growing Startup · Y Combinator Apr 18, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 33:13 Garry Tan So, uh, we're in this age of intelligence, as Sam Altman calls it, and I'm a deep believer in that.

Bob McGrew: AI Agents And The Path To AGI · Y Combinator Jan 31, 2025 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 2:23 Bob McGrew Um, I think, you know, for, for a lot of the early people who were startup people, you know, Sam, Greg, myself, um, it felt sort of painful and, and, and a little academic, but at the same time, it was sort of what we could do at the time.
  • ▶ 29:07 Garry Tan I remember working with Sam Altman at YC and, you know, he was bringing in some pretty wild hard tech companies like Helion focused on fusion or Oclo.

Why The Next AI Breakthroughs Will Be In Reasoning, Not Scaling · Y Combinator Nov 14, 2024 · 16 mentions

  • ▶ 0:26 Garry Tan Since then, Sam has told me that he actually wants to go to four orders of magnitude.
  • ▶ 1:15 Garry Tan Recently, Sam Altman wrote this pretty wild essay that predicted that AGI 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:48 Jared Friedman And so what was cool to me reading this essay is that it's literally the same ideas that Sam was talking about in. 6 times in the scene
  • ▶ 4:21 Diana Hu It's fun, because we run this, um, hackathon with OpenAI, and Sam came over and judged the winners, and one of the participants was actually Chip Design.
  • ▶ 12:00 Garry Tan Since then, Sam has, uh, told me that he actually wants to go to four orders of magnitude to get to a trillion dollars in, uh, you know, sort of spend. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 17:54 Jared Friedman Sam was just telling us that like O-two and O-three are not far behind.
  • ▶ 34:00 Diana Hu To connect to Sam's essay is a lot of things that are going to make the atom world, physical world better because it's really good at math and physics.

The 10 Trillion Parameter AI Model With 300 IQ · Y Combinator Nov 1, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 14:25 Diana Hu And we're seeing some interesting things, uh, with the one we're actually hosting right now in person right now as we speak downstairs a hackathon to give YC companies early access to a one and Sam himself was here that they kick off.

Jared Friedman - Advice for Hard-tech and Biotech Founders · Y Combinator Sep 20, 2019 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 2:22 Jared Friedman Here is a quote by Sam Altman that sounds like a complete paradox. 4 times in the scene

EconTalk Host Russ Roberts on Key Economic Concepts for Founders · Y Combinator Aug 7, 2019 · 1 mention

Ryan Hoover on Product Hunt's Acquisition and Lessons Learned About Launches with Dalton Caldwell · Y Combinator Feb 15, 2019 · 1 mention

The Path to $100B by Paul Buchheit · Y Combinator Oct 24, 2018 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 19:57 Paul Buchheit Sam's company, Justin and Emmett's company, Kiko, um, were all in that batch.
  • ▶ 33:32 Geoff Ralston The, for somewhat unclear reasons, this reminds me of a, of a, another Paul Bukitism, which is, ah, that, that Sam actually, ah, repeated in his introduction to the course, which was that, you know, what a company really needs is…

A Conversation with Elad Gil · Y Combinator Oct 18, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 41:32 Elad Gil And then it's interwoven with interviews with, um, you know, Sam from YC, and, uh, Claire Hughes Johnson from Stripe, and Marc Andreessen, and Reid Hoffman, and, uh, Ruchi Sanghvi, and a bunch of other people around their experiences…

Helping African Businesses Get Paid, Shola Akinlade of Paystack · Y Combinator Oct 16, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 2:54 Shola Akinlade I just, he just, he sent that email, um, and copied all, everybody, Sam, Michael, everybody, and I'm like, what is this?

Fundraising Fundamentals By Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator Oct 10, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 11:27 Geoff Ralston I would really recommend you look at the, ah, video of Sam Altman talking to Ron Conway, Mark Andreessen, Parker Conrad from Zenefits, at the time, rippling now, when they talk about

Geoff Ralston and Adora Cheung Discuss Startup School · Y Combinator Aug 7, 2018 · 3 mentions

Jessica Livingston Shares 9 Things She Learned From Founding YC · Y Combinator Jul 11, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 11:42 Jessica Livingston Um, Reddit was in that first batch, and the founders of Twitch, although they were working on a different idea, and Sam Altman's geolocation startup.

Announcing Work at a Startup · Y Combinator Jun 22, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 17:21 Jared Friedman Justin Kahn and Sam Altman are going to give keynote talks about working at a startup, why you should work at a startup, how to judge startups, what kind of compensation you should be looking for, how to negotiate an offer.

Advice for Students and Recent Graduates on Finding Jobs – Liz Wessel of WayUp · Y Combinator May 31, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 29:29 Liz Wessel You know, I said to Sam Altman right after YC, I was at, like, lunch or dinner, and, um, and he was there, and we were sitting next to each other, and I turned to him and I said, you know, the thing that I've had to learn about the most…

Breaking Down HackerRank's Survey of 40,000 Developers with Vivek Ravisankar · Y Combinator Mar 30, 2018 · 2 mentions

Paul Buchheit - Startup Investor School Day 2 · Y Combinator Mar 7, 2018 · 1 mention

Dalton Caldwell - Startup Investor School Day 2 · Y Combinator Mar 7, 2018 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 2:56 Geoff Ralston I will point out, as Sam said yesterday, that one of the worst things you can do as an investor is to be sheep. 2 times in the scene

Michael Seibel - Startup Investor School Day 2 · Y Combinator Mar 7, 2018 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 4:30 Michael Seibel because the second I started writing angel investment checks, Sam told me this lesson, and then I ignored him for two and a half years. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 11:48 Michael Seibel Um, if Sam was here, he probably would tell me I should be writing 250 K checks.

Carolynn Levy and Kirsty Nathoo - Startup Investor School Day 1 · Y Combinator Mar 6, 2018 · 11 mentions

  • ▶ 2:36 Carolynn Levy A quick word about process, and then we had some advice that Sam kind of covered, but we'll talk, we'll just reiterate it because it's important.
  • ▶ 2:46 Carolynn Levy Ok, so a lot of you raised your hand when Jeff asked, or Sam asked, how many people have already angel invested. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 22:42 Carolynn Levy The first, um, one extreme end would be, you know, a home run situation, and by home run, actually I think Sam mentioned this as well, this term, this is where an acquiring company is coming in and paying a lot of money for the startup you… 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 33:28 Carolynn Levy Ok, so, as I mentioned, Sam kind of already said some of this stuff. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 37:54 Carolynn Levy And also, you need to remember, you do have prorata rights, and remember Sam made the point that you need to exercise those, because yes, you are going to get really, really, really diluted, because you're the early money, but if you can't… 3 times in the scene

It's Surprising How Much Small Teams Can Get Done - Sam Chaudhary of ClassDojo · Y Combinator Jan 24, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 33:48 Sam Chaudhary Um, I think actually Sam Altman said this, that you get to about 25 people and your job shifts from building the product to building the culture, and it kind of stays there.

Communicate with Users, Build Something They Want - Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt · Y Combinator Oct 4, 2017 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 10:46 Ryan Hoover Um, I remember Sam, Sam was one of them and it's just like, you cut me off a couple of times and I came prepared knowing that.

Scaling Culture | Jason Kilar, former Hulu CEO · Y Combinator Jun 1, 2017 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 7:12 Jason Kilar Um, because when you're, as Sam and Reed were saying, when you're a team of 30, good intentions are good enough.
  • ▶ 9:41 Jason Kilar And, um, as Reed and Sam were saying earlier, um, a lot of companies do this.
  • ▶ 15:53 Jason Kilar And Reed and Sam talked about the things that you need to do through interviewing, which we absolutely did at Hulu as well in terms of, I think probably for the first 500 team members, I interviewed everybody as well, is, um, you obviously…
  • ▶ 16:37 Jason Kilar In the New York Times, uh, about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, about its culture or its workplace conditions, um, and I feel very, very strongly about this that, um, uh, and Sam mentioned this about how do you build a company…

An AI Primer with Wojciech Zaremba · Y Combinator May 17, 2017 · 1 mention

Jessica Livingston at Female Founders Conference 2014 · Y Combinator Mar 12, 2014 · 2 mentions

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