Sam Altman on Ambition Quotes

"If you don't take risks, you'll never do anything great."

"Don't wait for someone else to give you permission to be great."

"Risk is the price you pay for the opportunity to change the world."

"If you are not working on the most important problem in your field, why not?"

"If you can't focus for a few hours at a time, you're going to have a hard time building anything significant."

"If you are working on a problem that doesn't matter, it's very hard to get the best people to work with you."

"The world is much more malleable than most people think, but you have to have the confidence to push on it."

"If you are going to fail, fail pursuing a dream that was worth the effort."

"Ambition is a magnet. When you dream big, you attract the most talented people in the world to help you."

"If you are not failing occasionally, your goals are probably not ambitious enough."

"Most people are limited by their own self-belief and their own ambition. Do everything you can to expand these."

"Don't let your own internal voice tell you that your dream is too big. Let the world try to tell you that, and then prove them wrong."

"Make something people want."

"Don't let your internal narrative limit what you think you can accomplish."

"You want to be an exponential curve yourself."

"You want to be moving toward a future that you are personally excited to live in."

"It’s easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something exciting."

"It is easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something exciting and feel that their work matters."

"You have to be willing to be misunderstood for a long time if you want to do something new."

"Great things happen when someone decides that their dream is more important than their comfort."

"You should aim to be the best in the world at what you do."

"It’s easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something that matters and feel that their work will be significant."

"Optimism is a superpower."

"It is useful to focus on adding another zero to whatever you define as your success metric—money, status, impact on the world, or whatever."

"You get what you ask for. If you don't ask, you don't get."

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk at all when you are young."

"A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try."

"A small team of A-plus players can often outperform a giant team of B and C players."

"Always be looking for the next level of your goal. Never settle for 'good enough'."

"The best goals are the ones that seem slightly impossible but are actually achievable with extreme effort."

"It’s better to be a small part of a great thing than a big part of a mediocre thing."

"Surround yourself with people who have even higher ambitions than you do."

"The scale of your dream determines the scale of your impact. Don't settle for a small vision."