Sam Altman: “No matter how great your idea is, no one cares.”

So the question is, if you have an idea, but you don't want to talk about it because a big company is going to steal it and make it better. Okay, here is one of the things that takes founders a long time to learn, and that is, no matter how great your idea is, no one cares. Everybody else is so distracted that you could probably go put that idea and exact instructions for how to implement it on Tim Cook's desk and take no risk. It probably is a great idea, but everyone's really busy with their own things. Everyone's lives are really busy. Everyone has their own plans, and so you can rely on that to protect you. Now, you can pick a few examples from history, like Steve Jobs walking into park that day where someone did get screwed for sharing their idea, but you really have to work to find them. And it happens hundreds of thousands of times every day with nothing bad happening. So it's hard, though, because ideas feel like part of you and you don't want them to get stolen. And these big companies have lots of resources and you have none. But one of the things that we learned is that extreme secrecy among founders is a bad sign. You want to keep something 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. And you don't have to fear because the big companies are distracted, fighting each other. They're not going to come do your thing. Here is a personal example, just to give you some comfort in this. 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 about this, many 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. There are 2,500 accelerators in the world. I just heard from some economic student that studied this that YC has 180% of the profits of all accelerators in the world. And we tell people exactly what we do and how to do it. And, you know, like, people don't listen or people are worried that they're doing things their own way. So I think it was hard for me to learn this lesson of not fearing this, but I think in general, maybe don't give away the most important kernel, the Cotter pin. But don't be afraid of telling people what you do.