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Make Your Own Luck
Garry Tan· 2025-07-31 15:00
What does luck look like. If you had a lucky penny, it might just look like this. [Music] Without the penny, jam side down.With the penny, the universe literally bends to keep that jam facing up every single time. You can't do anything wrong. This is Sam from the movie Luck.She just found a magic penny that turns her from the unluckiest person alive into someone who can't lose. [Music] >> Lucky pennies are real. >> Today we're going to talk about how to manufacture your luck.No lucky penny needed. My fellow ...
The Lesson of Craft
Garry Tan· 2025-07-23 15:00
Craft & Product Development - Focus on perfecting craft, described as "shokunin kishu" in Japan, which means craft perfected for its own sake [1] - Compounding involves making numerous small, invisible improvements that eventually lead to significant results [1] - Aim for a "10-star experience" by exceeding expectations beyond the obvious five stars [1] - Product quality relies on continuous improvement through empirical testing, one change at a time [1] - Prioritize fixing bugs immediately rather than building new features on buggy code [1] Customer Focus & Value Creation - Identify user problems that are so painful they are willing to pay to solve them [1] - Create products that customers will "pull" from you due to their high value [1] - Emphasize that customers form opinions on quality from their own experience with products or services, not marketing [1] - Great chefs and founders are impatient to bring out the potential in their work, driven by a desire that aligns with the customer's needs [3] Key Attributes for Success - Take work seriously, consistently perform at the highest level, and aspire to improve skills [2][5] - Maintain cleanliness and be impatient to achieve greatness [2][3] - Be a leader, be stubborn, and insist on having things your own way [3] - Be passionate about the work [3]
you have dreams, put it out
Garry Tan· 2025-07-13 18:22
Guys, if you create content, you do great [ __ ] and you believe in yourself and you're creative, doesn't matter. You never know who's watching. Generally, you never know who knows who, who knows what.And with social media nowadays, [ __ ] just pop up on people's feed. So, if you do cool [ __ ] create [ __ ] put it out. Don't worry about your followers or if you're getting 10 likes, if you're doing content and you believe in it, it's sick, and you have dreams, put it out.You never know where you're going to ...
Stop Chasing, Start Attracting: How Desperation Kills Deals
Garry Tan· 2025-07-09 15:01
Key Principles for Founders - Desperation repels investors and others, signaling risk [5] - Contentment attracts capital and opportunities, as founders building independently signal confidence [6] - Handling rejection with resilience demonstrates potential for success [6] Strategies for Success - Focus on building something undeniable to attract helpers and funding organically [9][10] - Detachment, not as passivity but as inward power, allows opportunities to arise [11] - Embrace the present and stop chasing future outcomes to create space for opportunities [12] - Believe in a real chance of success, even if not 100% certain [8] Mindset and Action - Avoid performative actions and focus on real calm and progress [7] - Turn dreams into tangible code or hardware [14] - Look inward for design space, code, character, and conviction [13]
Sam Altman: This is the best time to build a startup ever
Garry Tan· 2025-06-25 18:16
Model Performance & Cost - Model performance is expected to improve significantly, exceeding current expectations [3] - The cost of using models like 03 decreased fivefold within a week, and further price reductions are anticipated [2] - Open-source models are expected to enable running powerful models locally, surprising users with their capabilities [3] Market Opportunity - There is a significant gap between current model capabilities and the products built utilizing them, indicating substantial opportunities for new product development [2]
Sam Altman's advice to founders: Don't try to rebuild ChatGPT
Garry Tan· 2025-06-24 15:01
One of the classic questions is how do I uh start a startup that doesn't get run over by open AI. That's sort of the number one question that's in our chat. We don't want to run you over.Um look, we're going to do our thing hopefully very well. We are going to try to make the best superent out of chatbt that we can. We're going to add the things that we think we need to add to that.Um, but that is like one small part of the opportunity in front of us. And it makes us sad when people are like, I'm gonna star ...
Steve Jobs' Hidden Blueprint for Insane Success
Garry Tan· 2025-06-23 15:38
Before Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs, he was a phone hacker. Yeah, you heard that right. At 12, a not yet teenager Steve Jobs cold called Bill Hulet, the actual founder of HP, and talked his way into getting free computer parts.At 19, he and W were building illegal devices to hack AT&T's phone network. Here's what nobody tells you, the DNA of Apple. Everything that made it revolutionary was already there in these early hustles.There were three things that he did that nobody teaches in business school. And these ...
Don't aspire to glory. Aspire to be useful.
Garry Tan· 2025-06-22 00:17
Most of the people here I don't think have even managed a single person yet. They're just starting their careers. What would you tell to you know the Elon who's never had to do that yet.I I generally think to try to try to be as useful as possible. It's it may sound try but it's it's so hard to be useful especially to be useful to a lot of people uh where you say the area under the curve of total utility is like how much how useful have you been to your fellow human beings times how many people. Um it like ...
We're in an AI gold rush right now. The gap between what models can do vs what products exist is mas
Garry Tan· 2025-06-21 23:13
Model Capabilities & Product Development - The current product development is significantly behind the capabilities of the latest models, indicating substantial opportunities for innovation [2] - Even without model improvements, there is a vast amount of new products to build [2] Pricing & Performance - The cost of 03 model decreased fivefold within a week, suggesting a rapid decline in price per performance [2] - The industry anticipates a significant drop in price per performance [3] Open Source Initiatives - An open-source model is soon to be released, expected to surpass current expectations [3] - The open-source model will enable running powerful models locally, surprising users with its capabilities [3]
That painful awe you feel toward successful founders? It might be your own untapped potential starin
Garry Tan· 2025-06-21 20:37
[Music] How do you know your golden shadow. One clue is in who you idolize or envy. We tend to project our unrealized strengths onto other people.Have you ever admired a visionary founder or brilliant coder and thought, "They're incredible. I can never do that." That almost painful awe you might feel actually might be your own potential reflected back at you. For founders, this is huge. The qualities you most admire in your heroes might exactly be what you need to unlock in yourself.Maybe you're in awe of a ...