The Blue Backpack and the Billion-Dollar Advice: My Afternoon with Sam Altman
It was one of those Tuesdays that felt like a Friday—exhausting, frantic, and filled with more bugs than features. I was sitting in a corner of a crowded coffee shop, nursing a lukewarm espresso and staring at a block of code that refused to compile. My laptop was plastered with stickers, but the one right in the center read: Build Something People Want. I was so deep in thought, muttering about API rate limits, that I didn't notice the guy in the grey hoodie standing next to my table. "Is this seat taken?" I looked up, ready to vaguely gesture ‘no’ and dive back into my screen. Then I froze. The blue eyes, the casual demeanor, the distinct lack of a frantic tech-founder vibe despite being the center of the AI universe. It was Sam Altman. "Uh, no," I managed, closing a few browser tabs out of instinct. "It’s all yours." He sat down with a tea, placing a heavily worn backpack on the floor. For a few minutes, we worked in silence. The hum of the espresso...