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Comment by unalone | Hacker News Reader

That "TJ Rogers" article is reporting itself as "not found." (EDIT: Never mind, I tried again and it loaded.)

Also - meaning absolutely no disrespect to sama - but why specifically is he on the list? I've used Loopt, and while it's very good, it's not particularly interesting in its design, and while it fills a pretty huge niche, so do quite a lot of other startups. I'm certain other sites have more users, more addicted users (Facebook?), and more constant activity.

Perhaps it's a matter of knowing Sam in person? In that case, I'd be curious as to what exactly makes him such a memorable figure.

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From what I've read/heard, the guy is fearless and can make anything happen.

"Sam Altman could parachute into an island full of cannibals and be king within 5 years."

When I was his age, I was boldly drinking my first beer and trying to figure out who I was. He was apparently building autonomous helicopter navigation systems, making deals with major cell phone companies, and getting prepared to be a speaker at the Apple WWDC.

I've never met him, but from what I gather he just has the "it" factor.

Lots of people are fearless and can make anything happen. I'm not sure you can really compare Loopt with Apple quite yet :/ Bizarre.

He didnt compare loopt with apple, he compared Sam with Steve Jobs, how old is sam? plenty of time for bigger things than loopt(which is still a pretty impressive achievement)

Building some mobile syndication thingy is by no mean comparable to designing the first mac.

I think he's referring to Sam's appearance at WWDC regarding Loopt on the iPhone.

I think he's referring to Steve Jobs appearing on the same list as Sam.

You can compare anyone with anyone else. You just can't equate them.

> Lots of people are fearless and can make anything happen

Not in my experience.

It's a pretty rare trait.

But still, it's not a "5-people-only" trait.

So why Sam Altman instead of, say, Jeff Bezos? Or Mark Zuckerberg?

Anything in particular that you read/heard?

I mean, again - don't get me wrong, because he's a very impressive guy. I hope that I'm able to do things that great that young. But "young ultrasuccessful founder" is not a rare thing. Being a billionaire before 25 has happened again and again.

But we're all aware of that, since the culture is so ultrafocused on the youth and beauty brigade. And obviously PG isn't writing Sam in because he wants to promote Loopt, because Sam doesn't need another Inc mention beyond the ones he's had already. So I'd be interested in what exactly Sam's on the list for, since I know next to nothing about the guy.

> But "young ultrasuccessful founder" is not a rare thing. Being a billionaire before 25 has happened again and again.

What exactly do you consider 'rare?' According to Forbes, there were 691 billionaires in the world (of all ages) in 2005. In a world with about 7B people, the probability that you be in that group is

691/7000000000 = 9.87142... e-8 %

Sam is no billionaire, AFAIK, but he shares the qualities of approximately 0.0000001% of the world's most financially successful population. On top of that, he's in his early 20's. The number is even smaller if you include the handful of members in this demographic. Quite a good justification to be on that list, IMO.

Apologies. Using the phrase "billionaire" was exaggerated. (I think that billionaire before 25 has happened twice or thrice?) There are, however, many, many young tech millionaires.

My point, as I said before, wasn't that I was critical of him, and - again - I'm certain he's on the list for good reason. I just want to know what qualities in particular elevate him above all those other people who could have been included.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278311

You can read what he says about doing bizdev. Considering he got big companies to work with his startup, I think there's probably some nuggets in there.

It's a little funny. The first I heard of Sam Altman was when Paul Graham said, "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19."

2.5 years later Paul puts Sam on the list and leaves Bill off of it.

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