zlacker

>>VirusN+(OP)
He’s just 37 years old, I’d say his accomplishments are pretty impressive for 37!

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?

>>yashap+L7
i tend to see most success stories as luck of the draw. don't know anything really about sam's journey other than what is here, so can't say i know his specific story, and don't really care.

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

after that, you've got a real good chance of BIG FINANCIAL SUCCESS, if that's your thing.

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).

>>readon+Sd
Your stats are completely off. Whiteness does not predict success as many non white ethnic groups are much more successful.

>>VirusN+Vm
whiteness is a little more complicated than the color of your skin.

and groups of people with non-white skin -- say, Asian Indian Americans -- being able to overcome racism is great, but it should not be required, and they had some advantages:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-mak...

https://archive.ph/ih2Sa

  The result was an intense form of social engineering, but one that went largely unacknowledged. Immigrants from India, armed with degrees, arrived after the height of the civil-rights movement, and benefited from a struggle that they had not participated in or even witnessed. They made their way not only to cities but to suburbs, and broadly speaking were accepted more easily than other nonwhite groups have been.

>>readon+Yz
What racism did they overcome? What is your evidence of any racism? It seems your definition shifts from moment to moment? Is it any disparities that are measurable, regardless of intent (what you are likely to say when talking about the african american community)? But then other times you want to make racism some invisible thing that has no external effects?

On top of that, you roll out a quote to trivialize a group’s success due to hard work and determination as “social engineering”.

If we had been talking about the Jewish community and you had used that quote, I think many would consider you a bigot, but currently it’s more socially acceptable to attack Indian Americans