Sam Altman on the advice he wishes he received earlier in his career “One of the other things I learned that I wish I had gotten advice on early in my career is ‘ask for what you want.’ You will get told no a lot, but sometimes it will work. And I think you see a lot of entrepreneurs shoot themselves in the foot because they don’t ask that person to quit their job and come join them. They don’t ask this big company to do a deal with them. And they’re just not aggressive enough.” Sam continues: “Being willing to ask for what you want and be somewhat aggressive are really important characteristics of being an entrepreneur. People don’t want to fail. They don’t want to be told no. They don’t want to end up in some crisis.” The other thing he learned in his career is that each crisis gets less. scary than the one before it: “There are a lot things that really go wrong, and they feel like company-killing events. And they feel like there’s no way you’re going to survive because the crises are really bad. And the thing you learn is that you generally do survive these and the world doesn’t usually end. And even if in the moment something happens and you have no idea how you’re going to get around it, you eventually figure out a way. On the 19th major crisis, you’re like: ‘well, I survived the first 18. I’ll probably get through this one.’ And you kind of just do.” Video source: @ycombinator (2016)

Watch the full @ycombinator interview with Sam Altman here: