Sam Altman Envying Dropouts: Stanford Graduates Cry Quietly
Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO and longtime dropout from Stanford in 2005, confesses envy for today's 20-year-old college dropouts swimming in startup opportunities. Forget the $500,000 college sticker shock ā AI and vibe coding tools made skipping class almost an investment strategy. Altman's startup origin story involves cofounding Loopt at age 19, which eventually sold, leading him to Y Combinator's helm and OpenAI. At a recent 2025 DevDay, he revealed he never planned ChatGPT's memory feature, his 'durable advantage,' because, surprise, innovation is mostly guesswork. Meanwhile, Palantir's Meritocracy Fellowship recruits freshly minted high school grads, proving college might just be a scenic detour on the entrepreneurship highway.
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Source: Businessinsider | Published: 10/8/2025 | Author: Shubhangi Goel