Sam Altman@sama
if i were like, a sports star or an artist or something, and just really cared about doing a great job at my thing, and was up at 5 am practicing free throws or whatever, that would seem pretty normal right?
the first part of openai was unbelievably fun; we did what i believe is the most important scientific work of this generation or possibly a much greater time period than that.
this current part is less fun but still rewarding. it is extremely painful as you say and often tempting to nope out on any given day, but the chance to really "make a dent in the universe" is more than worth it; most people don't get that chance to such an extent, and i am very grateful. i genuinely believe the work we are doing will be a transformatively positive thing, and if we didn't exist, the world would have gone in a slightly different and probably worse direction.
(working hard was always an extremely easy trade until i had a kid, and now an extremely hard trade.)
i do wish i had taken equity a long time ago and i think it would have led to far fewer conspiracy theories; people seem very able to understand "ok that dude is doing it because he wants more money" but less so "he just thinks technology is cool and he likes having some ability to influence the evolution of technology and society". it was a crazy tone-deaf thing to try to make the point "i already have enough money".
i believe that AGI will be the most important technology humanity has yet built, i am very grateful to get to play an important role in that and work with such great colleagues, and i like having an interesting life.
