What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me" (December 2023) is Altman's shortest and most distilled personal essay — 17 numbered observations written after the November 2023 board crisis during which he was fired and rehired within five days. The timing matters: these are the lessons he arrived at immediately after surviving the most publicized corporate crisis of 2023. Key observations: optimism is a competitive advantage because it makes you willing to attempt difficult things that pessimists won't try; you have to be willing to be ruthless about cutting your losses on bad projects, people, and directions even when you've invested heavily; great work requires rare people who have strong convictions and can change their minds fast; and — most revealing given the context — "keep the long-term mission in mind even when things go badly short-term." The essay is notably absent of recrimination despite being written days after a board that included his close collaborators tried to remove him. Readers who tracked the OpenAI drama read this as Altman's public processing of what happened and his restatement of why OpenAI's mission justifies the turmoil. Item 7 — "do things that compound" — is the connective thread to How to Be Successful. Item 13 — "be careful about the stories you tell yourself and others" — reads differently when you know the board accused him of being 'not consistently candid.' This is a document that rewards close reading against the events of November 2023.