- OpenAI chief Sam Altman urged would-be founders to bet on AI.
- The space is developing rapidly and is widely underestimated, he said.
- Despite their current feud, Altman said he was "very grateful" for Elon Musk's early backing.
Sam Altman has some galvanizing advice for aspiring tech entrepreneurs: The rise of AI has made it the best time yet to build a company, he said.
In an interview with Y Combinator President and CEO Garry Tan, the OpenAI chief likened the AI boom to other turning points in tech, including the rise of mobile, the advent of the internet, and the semiconductor revolution.
"With each successive major technological revolution, you've been able to do more than you could before," Altman said.
At the same time, he acknowledged that being able to solve OpenAI's funding problem early on — with money from his previous ventures — was "very helpful" in getting the company off the ground, as it would've been difficult to find other investors otherwise.
And despite their contentious relationship today, Altman said he was "very grateful" to Elon Musk for helping to fund OpenAI in its early days.
Since then, Musk has bashed and sued the company on multiple occasions, accusing it of deceiving him into becoming a cofounder. OpenAI hit back last month, saying Musk was harassing the company for "his own competitive advantage" in the name of his rival firm, xAI.
Musk also has called OpenAI "evil" for reportedly asking investors not to back its AI rivals, including his own, following its most recent $6.6 billion funding round.
Meanwhile, Altman said the time is ripe for founders because AI is developing "a lot faster than people are appreciating right now," and the technology is being widely underestimated — including by the founders of billion-dollar companies. "Bet on this tech trend," Altman said. "We are not near the saturation point."
This comes as OpenAI is making moves to transition to a for-profit business structure after operating as a nonprofit for nearly a decade — including preliminary discussions with California's attorney general's office.
At the same time, Altman warned that while AI can provide "short-term explosions of growth," it doesn't automatically spell success for startups. "You still have to build something of enduring value."
In the future, Altman said he can foresee a world where a company is making billions of dollars and has fewer than 100 employees.
"I don't know what to make of that other than it's a great time to be a startup founder," he said. "It's like one person plus 10,000 GPUs. Pretty powerful."
Still, while the polarizing executive has said artificial general intelligence, or AGI is imminent, some researchers believe it's further afield.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.