#100 - Sam Altman

About this episode

<p><a href="https://twitter.com/sama">Sam Altman</a> expands on ideas that have come up in several of his essays. Specifically: choosing projects, creating value, and finding purpose.<br><br>Sam’s the president of <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/">YC Group</a> and co-chairman of <a href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>. You can find him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/sama">@sama</a>.<br><br>The YC podcast is hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/craigcannon">Craig Cannon</a>.<br><br></p><p>***<br><b><br>Topics</b><br></p><p><br>1:25 - From <a href="https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short">The Days Are Long But The Decades Are Short</a> - Minimize your own cognitive load from distracting things that don’t really matter. It’s hard to overstate how important this is, and how bad most people are at it.<br><br>3:50 - Stepping back and evaluating your work<br><br>5:30 - Creating metrics for your projects<br><br>6:30 - Taking a year off <br><br>9:30 - Figuring out when to commit<br><br>11:30 - Poker<br><br>12:30 - From <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/productivity">Productivity</a> - Sleep seems to be the most important physical factor in productivity for me. Exercise is probably the second most important physical factor. The third area is nutrition. <br><br>15:00 - From <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/you-and-your-research">You and Your Research by Richard Hamming</a> - "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?"<br><br>16:30 - From <a href="https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short">The Days Are Long But The Decades Are Short</a> - Things in life are rarely as risky as they seem. Most people are too risk-averse, and so most advice is biased too much towards conservative paths.<br><br>17:30 - Perspective shifts<br><br>20:15 - From <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/productivity">Productivity</a> - My system has three key pillars: “Make sure to get the important shit done”, “Don’t waste time on stupid shit”, and “make a lot of lists”.<br><br>22:30 - <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/what-happened-to-innovation-1">What Happened to Innovation</a><br><br>24:50 - From <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/you-and-your-research">You and Your Research by Richard Hamming</a> - He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. <br><br>26:50 - The deferred life plan doesn’t work<br><br>31:50 - From <a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/the-merge">The Merge</a> - Our self-worth is so based on our intelligence that we believe it must be singular and not slightly higher than all the other animals on a continuum. Perhaps the AI will feel the same way and note that differences between us and bonobos are barely worth discussing. <br><br>34:10 - Weight training<br><br>35:30 - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Way-Love-Meditations-Anthony-Classics/dp/038524939X">The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello</a><br><br></p>