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- Sam Altman: “No matter how great your idea is, no one cares.”
Sam Altman: “No matter how great your idea is, no one cares.”
Sam is asked what a founder should do if they have an idea but don’t want to talk about it because a big company might steal it. He responds:
“Here is one of the things that takes founders a long time to learn: No matter how great your idea is, no one cares. Everybody is so distracted that you could probably put that idea with exact instructions for how to implement it on Tim Cook’s desk and take no risk.”
Sam continues:
“Extreme secrecy among founders is a bad sign. You want to keep some things secret for sure, but you should be willing to talk about the broad sketches of what you’re doing because you need that to recruit people, to get investors, to get customers.”
Talking about your idea is also how you get feedback from other really smart people.
Sam gives his own experience with Y Combinator as an example:
“We at YC talk about everything we do. We talk about how to operate. We give our best possible advice. I have given talks before to rooms of people that want to start accelerators. And I say: ‘If you want to start an accelerator, here is exactly what to do step by step, and here are the mistakes to avoid step by step.’ And people always say, ‘Are you crazy? You’re giving away YC secrets.’ And we are, and yet no one ever listens… It was hard for me to learn this lesson of not fearing this… But don’t be afraid of telling people what you do.”