Sam Altman: “The most underrated quality of all is being really determined”

The most underrated quality of all is being really determined. This is more important than being smart. This is more important than having a network. This is more important than a great idea. The hardest thing about starting a company is the level and the frequency of bad stuff that happens to you and most people that are good in really other ways eventually just get killed. The company gets killed by stuff going wrong. So much about being a successful entrepreneur is just not giving up. When we have funded people who have a great idea, perfect background on paper and a great product and still failed it has usually been that they are insufficiently determined. So I think this is the most important non obvious skill of a founder. Of course you need a good product and a good market and to be smart but that's really obvious. The degree to which being like a three or four standard deviation outlier on determination is a required skill of a CEO is not something that was obvious to me when I started.