OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's advice on taking risks: 'Most things are not a one-way door'

One of the first risks that Sam Altman took in his life was to drop out of Stanford to build Loopt, a location-based social networking app. (File photo)

As the CEO of OpenAi, a pioneer in creating artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Sam Altman is not a stranger to taking risks. In fact, in 2005, he took a risk that changed the trajectory of his career -- he dropped out of Stanford to build Loopt, a location-based social networking app before co-founding OpenAI that ultimately developed ChatGPT.

It “seemed like a really fun thing to try,” the 39-year-old, told students during an interview at his alma mater, the St. Louis-area John Burroughs School, CNBC Make It reported. It was a risk he could afford to take because he could always go resume his education if entrepreneurship didn’t work out.

“That’s the key to most risk, is most things are not a one-way door,” Altman said. “You can try something, it doesn’t work out, you can undo it, you can do something else.” It’s important to take the right risks but that doesn't mean that one should avoid taking altogether, he added. “The risky thing is to not go try the things that might really work out" because regret can kick in, the OpenAI boss said. “You kind of look back at your career 10, 20, 30 years later and say, ‘Man, I wish I had tried the thing I really wanted to try. You should just put a huge premium on doing that anytime you feel like you might say that later.”

Altman also encouraged students and young professionals to be open to taking unconventional career paths. The traditional route of going to college, getting a job and staying there “forever” may not offer the financial security it did to previous generations.

“Now I think the traditional path is, I won’t say falling apart, but it’s quite challenged,” he said. “And AI will probably disrupt things even more and put more variants in the traditional path.”