Sam Altman: In the Future, One Person + 10,000 GPUs Could Build a Billion-Dollar Company

Sam Altman shares insights on AI’s potential to shape billion-dollar companies with minimal teams, using powerful GPUs and advanced innovation stages.

Recently, YC President Garry Tan had a conversation on entrepreneurship with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, where Sam emphasized that current AI technology is far from reaching its peak.

He encouraged entrepreneurs to embrace AI, suggesting that leveraging this technology in the early stages of startups could help achieve rapid breakthroughs. By prioritizing speed, focus, and adaptability, startups could outmaneuver large companies constrained by rigid planning cycles, creating a distinct and competitive advantage.

Discussing the path toward AGI, Sam outlined stages from “chatbots” to “agents” to “innovators.” He predicted future technology would endow AI with greater innovation capacity, enabling it to explore complex phenomena and produce scientific breakthroughs to drive technological progress.

Sam encouraged startups to harness AI for a small, efficient team model. He envisions future companies with fewer than 100 employees—or even just one person backed by strong computing power—offering startups unparalleled opportunities.

Sam Altman

From the beginning, we’ve said we’re pursuing AGI, though back then you couldn’t even mention it in this field without it sounding crazy.

Garry Tan

I remember the intense criticism you faced over this.

Sam Altman

We really wanted to push this forward, though we had far fewer resources than DeepMind and others. So we decided, "They’ll try many things; we need to focus on one direction to win here." Many people still don’t understand the value of extreme belief in one bet. That’s why I’m so excited about startups now—most people are still astoundingly indifferent to this.