OpenAI

Sam Altman: "Never a Better Time to Do a Startup"

Jul 28, 2026 · 39:01

Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, and Y Combinator's Garry Tan discuss why this is the best time to start a startup, drawing on Altman's journey from YC's first batch in 2005 to building OpenAI. Altman argues that AI's rapid progress—models improving six months like two years—makes ambitious startups more viable than ever, as agents and cost reductions enable projects that were impossible a year ago. He recounts the early days of OpenAI when 'everybody was calling us an idiot,' advising founders to develop conviction in ideas others dismiss, and shares how helping people (like meeting Greg Brockman through Stripe) creates long-term serendipity. The conversation addresses the Hugging Face incident as a real alignment and security failure, and Altman emphasizes the importance of distributing power through startups to avoid concentration. He closes with advice to his younger self: 'It's all going to work out.'

What Top AI Labs Are Really Doing With Observability

Jul 24, 2026 · 30:30

Olivier Pomel, CEO of Datadog, recounts how two French engineers in New York built the company that monitors the entire cloud, starting with a Y Combinator rejection that became a driving force. He attributes Datadog’s success to staying close to raw customer feedback and support tickets, building culture by example rather than writing it down, and betting early on the cloud explosion. Datadog now employs 8,000 people and offers 20–25 products. Pomel reveals that the company went public on COVID lockdown day, saw its stock drop 65% in two weeks, and recovered through consistent storytelling to public investors. On AI, his co-founder told engineers that in two quarters they would not be writing any code anymore; Datadog is investing in agents and smarter observability. His key advice for founders is to move faster on both hiring and firing, since hiring quickly and fixing mistakes beats waiting for the perfect hire.