OpenAI's Seven-Year Journey

A story about Sam Altman discussing OpenAI's journey at an SV Angel event in San Francisco.

"I went to that event and Sam Altman spoke. He was basically like 'Everyone thinks that OpenAI is an overnight success. I've been working on this for 7 years, and so have all of these other AI scientists and AI engineers. It took us 7 years to make ChatGPT what it is today.'

They didn't launch a product for maybe 5 years or something along those lines. He left probably the best job in Silicon Valley, running YC - probably the highest paid, lowest effort job you could have. At YC you get to see all the smartest people, get to be the kingmaker, everyone in Silicon Valley is coming to kiss your ring. But he quit to go do this nonprofit AI thing, and had been funding it as his own personal passion project up until then."