How so? OpenAI is nowhere near turning a profit, it’s a research lab masquerading as a business. It’s alive only due to massive injections of capital from investors (and when they weren’t prepared to fork over any more, Microsoft).
Sam Altman is clearly brilliant at raising capital. I don’t want to downplay the importance of that skill. But selling a product to actual customers for more than it cost to make is a completely separate - and let’s face it, less sexy - endeavour.
Also, note this quote from Paul Graham [1]:
> Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19."
Not to mention that PG still declined him, and Sam refused to leave. Sounds to me like a bit more than just your average lucky kid.
I'm sure there are ways to lean on the scales and enhance your "luck," but if you don't attribute most of anyone's success to luck you are a fool. How many potential business geniuses died of cholera in the last couple hundred years?
But to claim that Sam Altman doesn't know how to build a business is a bit of stretch. OpenAI seems to be doing quite well.