He dropped out of Stanford in 2005, at 19, to co-found Loopt. Yeah, it ultimately failed, but over 7 years they got 5 million users, raised $30 mil in funding, and were acquihired for $43.4 mil.
He was a YC partner at ~25, YC’s president at ~28, and seemed to do a good job leading it for ~5 years. He’s also been pretty personally successful as an Angel investor.
He was an early investor in OpenAI, left YC a few years ago to become their CEO, and they’ve done extremely well under him.
No, he’s not Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Zuck, etc., but his accomplishments at 37 are pretty damn good. I’m not really seeing how this is failing upwards?
a super-rich dude might need to work hard, or not, but your born circumstances largely predict your success, imo, as seems to be pointed out by science/stats.
but i figure the key ingredients to getting rich, esp without accomplishing 'much' in a traditional sense, are:
* born in america, or able to get there at some point
* not poor, higher level incomes/professions/entrepreneur parents better
* white
* male
add Stanford, and now you're virtually guaranteed big/huge financial success -- the only question now is how successful/rich do you want to be, and how quickly?
just my take.
i just feel like OP was probably looking for a "BUT WHAT DID HE _DO_??"-type of explanation, and i'm like, well, did he meet the prerequisites -- i.e. what were the circumstances of his birth/upbringing? if so, he was born in the top 1% of the top 1% of the global population -- that's a pretty good start.
i don't know anything about Sam's particular situation other than what comments said here.
i do enjoy learning about people who fail upwards or just do really well after having not done much -- you can see if it fits into your worldview, and if not, learn and change your worldview.
ditto the stories of the lower-class-born people who make it big - someone maybe like Mark Cuban (or sam altman? no idea of his bg).