Greg Brockman

Learning hard stuff, the importance of curiosity and the path to OpenAI

Author

Paolo Salvetti
March 12, 2025

We've been thinking of sharing this for some time!

Greg Brockman has been a great source of inspiration; whenever I struggle to learn a new technical subject (and, well, I came across his most famous article while learning ML), I go back to his blog to find timeless advice and perspectives from his early articles.

I believe his work could also be inspiring also for you.

BIO
Why Greg Brockman?

Greg Brockman’s career started in 2010 when he dropped out of MIT to join Stripe, which had just been founded by his classmate Patrick Collison and Jor John Collison.

After becoming Stripe's first-ever CTO and helping grow the company from 5 to 205 employees, he co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever, initially running it from his living room.

Probably nothing describes him better than Sam Altman’s own words:

If you’re curious about his journey, you can find a full overview here (and I love how he lists his work experiences under projects).

His old (and best) articles are all collected on his blog, while today, you can mainly find him on his X account.

Topics: Technology, Careers, Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship

p.s. the best way to support this newsletter is to share with a curious friend, hit that forward button! 🥳

3 ESSAYS TO GET YOU STARTED
1 - My path to OpenAI

It starts with early programming in college and ends with a car ride with Sam Altman and the seed idea of OpenAI.

It’s a personal, genuine testimony and an inspiration for everyone pursuing their ambitions and following their curiosity.

“After the dinner concluded, Sam gave me a ride back to the city. We both agreed that it seemed worth starting something here. I knew it would only happen if someone was willing to go full-time on figuring out exactly what that would be and who would be a part of it. I volunteered myself as tribute.

And so the next day, I had something impactful to build once again.”

One of my favorite Greg Brockman articles; it’s an ode to self-learning, curiosity, and persistence.

In this piece, he shares insights on breaking down complex topics, leveraging available resources, and revisiting foundational concepts to strengthen long-term understanding.

It’s a great inspiration for anyone looking to master difficult technical skills independently.

“From our Fellows and Scholars programs, I’d known that software engineers with solid fundamentals in linear algebra and probability can become machine learning engineers with just a few months of self study. But somehow I’d convinced myself that I was the exception and couldn’t learn. But I was wrong — even embedded in the middle of OpenAI, I couldn’t make the transition because I was unwilling to become a beginner again.

You’re probably not an exception either. If you’d like to become a deep learning practitioner, you can. You need to give yourself the space and time to fail. If you learn from enough failures, you’ll succeed — and it’ll probably take much less time than you expect.”

Written in 2014 when he was the CTO of Stripe, he discusses the importance of adaptability, communication, and fostering a strong engineering culture.

It’s packed with insights and learnings and a good way to look back at the golden era of tech and how he paved his way toward OpenAI.

“The best advice I’ve gotten here is you have two traditional choices for how to delegate: you either delegate completely (and maybe you define some principles, but otherwise you have to leave the execution alone), or you stay involved in all the details. The latter model can work — think Mark Zuckerberg’s involvement in product — but you really only get to do it for one area. (There’s also a non-traditional approach, which is to train some people to be really good at simulating you, and have them run the delegated function. This may work but is not necessarily healthy.) But universally, “sparse micromanagement” (the best term I’ve heard for jumping in to some random issue, overturning all the decisions, and then disappearing) is the worst.” 

From Stripe to OpenAI.

It’s a continuation of what was written two years in #define CTO, and it’s fascinating to see how thinking has evolved, learning has been applied, and past experiences can shape someone's path.

WHAT IS WORTH CHECKING THIS WEEK?

Some of the most interesting things we found on the internet this week:

  • Deep-dive into Anthropic’s new Claude Code agent and a comprehensive overview of vibe coding [One Useful Thing]

  • The US island that speaks Elizabethan English [BBC]

  • Three observations about the economics of AI [Sam Altman]

  • Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on the future of coding 👇

SUGGESTION BOX

We’re grateful for feedback of any kind, please don’t hesitate to reply directly to this email and get in touch!

Enjoyed it? Forward it to a friend and have them signup here

Enjoy Greg Brockman’s writing & see you next week! 🙂