Austin Scholar #105: How I met Sam Altman
& how your kid can meet their heroes, too
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How I met Sam Altman
How your kid can meet their heroes, too
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
Austin’s Anecdote: How I met Sam Altman
This last Monday, I had the absolute honor to meet the man of the year, Sam Altman.
Here’s the story: Three days after I got my wisdom teeth removed (I was probably not completely lucid, to be honest), I hopped on a plane to San Francisco with my ex-boss, David Perell for his How I Write interview with Sam Altman.
David has let me listen in on his interviews with some of my heroes (Sahil Bloom, Ali Abdaal, Tim Urban, and Tim Ferris), so he thought it would be a great opportunity for me to join his team for this one. I was, of course, honored.
When we reached the OpenAI building, I honestly think I was more nervous for the interview than David was. I won’t say too much else because I don’t want to spoil the episode when it goes live but here are a few of my own notes:
The actual OpenAI building is so cool (Sam Altman is a fantastic interior designer)
I was in Sam Altman’s line of sight for an entire hour
Immediately after, I looked up OpenAI internships for Stanford students that don’t require coding skills (Seriously: the OpenAI culture seems amazing and the people were incredibly welcoming and kind. It made me want to work there.)
Overall, David wanted me to learn a couple of things from this experience – that successful people are both insanely cool and normal people, how messy live interviews can be (trying to stage the set, managing last-minute prep, scrambling when the printer stopped working, etc.), and what life could be like as a professional writer.
Now, how did I get this opportunity and why does David want to help me? It all started back in my sophomore year of high school when I took Write of Passage (David’s online writing program) and David saw an ambitious teenager who loved to write – someone he could help.
Oftentimes, successful adults are willing to overinvest in ambitious teenagers – and will (like David) foster opportunities for teenagers to do further networking and get a jumpstart in their career or passion.
Keep reading to find out how and why – and how to replicate this for your kids.
How your kid can meet their heroes, too
Successful people love to help ambitious kids. Why? Two reasons: