Sam Altman on Risk Quotes

"I think the biggest risk is actually not doing the thing that you're most excited about."

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

"The risk of being wrong is often much lower than the risk of being boring."

"The most successful people I know are the ones who took the biggest risks early on."

"Risk is necessary for progress; without it, we just iterate on the past."

"Most people are too risk-averse. The downside is usually much less than you think, and the upside is much more."

"If you can't handle the risk of failure, you'll never handle the weight of success."

"The ultimate risk is reaching the end of your life and wondering 'what if'."

"The risk of being comfortable is that you stop growing."

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

"The best way to manage risk is to move fast. Speed reduces the window of exposure."

"You have to be willing to be misunderstood for a long time if you want to take a real risk."

"The downside of most risks is just a bit of embarrassment and some lost time."

"True risk is staying in a job you hate for forty years."

"You have to be willing to look stupid to take a risk that actually matters."

"Risk management is about ensuring that no single failure can take you out of the game."

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

"The risk of AI is real, but the risk of not developing it is even greater for humanity."

"Innovation requires taking risks that most experts will tell you are foolish."

"You want to be in a position where you can take a lot of risks and fail and still be okay."

"In a startup, the risk is usually that you'll fail to make something people want, not that the tech won't work."

"Early in your career, you should take the most risk because you have the least to lose."

"One of the risks of success is that you become too afraid to lose what you've built."

"You should seek out risk that others are afraid of but you understand well."

"Most risks are reversible. The ones that aren't are the only ones to truly fear."

"You want to take risks that have a very high ceiling, even if the floor is zero."

"Risk is not a single thing. It is a portfolio of bets you make on the future."

"Asymmetric risk is the key to wealth: find things where you can lose 1x but make 100x."

"People are very bad at evaluating risk. They think about the risk of doing something, but not the risk of not doing it."

"Don't let the fear of what others think stop you from taking a calculated risk."

"Risk-taking is like a muscle; you have to train it by making small bets frequently."

"Betting on yourself is the lowest risk investment you can ever make."

"High-risk, high-reward bets are the only way to achieve non-linear growth."