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‘I failed pretty hard at my first startup – it sucked!’ ChatGPT’s Sam Altman leaves an inspiring message for first-time entrepreneurs

It’s no exaggeration to say that ChatGPT has truly taken the world by storm, with its powerful abilities capturing the imagination of people everywhere. 

For its CEO, Sam Altman, OpenAI has earned him widespread recognition and praise in the tech community, but despite all the success, he experienced a difficult setback early in his career when his first startup failed.

Altman co-founded a location-based social networking app called Loopt at the age of 19. Although he had high hopes for the company, the startup ultimately failed, and Altman described the experience as “pretty hard” and “sucked”. Despite this setback, Altman learned valuable lessons from his failure and went on to have a successful career as an entrepreneur and CEO.

In a recent tweet, he shared some words of advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs, saying, “I wish someone told me during the first one…that no one else thinks about your failures as much as you do.”

“..the thing I wish someone had told me during the first one is that no one else thinks about your failures as much as you do and that as long as you don’t psych yourself out, you can try again.”

Sam Altman, a 37-year-old technology leader, has a unique background that has helped shape his career in the tech industry. Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, Altman was introduced to the world of technology at a young age. When he was just eight years old, he taught himself how to program and disassemble a Macintosh computer, demonstrating a natural curiosity and aptitude for technology.

Altman’s entrepreneurial journey began at a young age when he co-founded a location-based social networking app called Loopt at the age of 19. Altman was pursuing a degree in computer science at Stanford University. 

He spent two years there but eventually dropped out along with two of his classmates to fully dedicate themselves to working on their mobile application, Loopt. The app was designed to allow users to share their location with friends, providing a new way for people to stay connected and stay informed about each other’s whereabouts.

Despite the failure of this first startup, Altman did not give up on his entrepreneurial aspirations. Instead, he took the lessons he learned and continued to build his skills and knowledge in the field of technology and entrepreneurship.

Today, Altman is best known for his work as the CEO of OpenAI. In 2015, Altman co-founded OpenAI, a non-profit research organisation dedicated to promoting and developing friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity as a whole.

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Yajush Gupta

Yajush Gupta

Yajush is a journalist at Dynamic Business. He previously worked with Reuters as a business correspondent and holds a postgrad degree in print journalism.

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