Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, believes that the game of poker can teach a lot about taking risks in business. Big Tech’s man of the hour shared his love of poker in a 2018 podcast with former Y Combinator executive Craig Cannon. Four years later, he is now considered a technological revolutionary.
In the podcast, Altman revealed how he used to play poker regularly when he was a student at Stanford University in California. But Altman cautioned that poker isn’t for everyone.
“The things that I think have taught me the most about business are poker and investing, so I recommend both,” Altman said, according to his statements cited by Business Today.
“I played a lot in college, very seriously, and it’s not for everyone, but I recommend it as a way to learn about business, psychology, risk, etc. I went to school on the peninsula (San Francisco) and that’s why I went there (to the casino) a lot, you know.
The money he won was from poker
Altman candidly shared that he made enough money from poker to cover his living expenses during college, but not enough to fund his startup.
“(Poker) didn’t (provide funding) for my startup, but it covered my living expenses as a college student,” said the current artificial intelligence point man.
Later in his career, Altman not only found himself running his own startup, but also funded others as the head of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. He became president of Y Combinator in 2014 and launched OpenAI in 2015 as a laboratory platform for artificial intelligence research.
