Sam Altman explains how to come up with a great startup idea

0:00 wait to have a good idea before you start

0:01 a startup if you start a startup without a good

0:03 idea um and you just kind of cast around

0:05 for one you'll be under pressure to make something up it

0:08 won't work that well the very best startups are

0:10 all started because someone believes so passionately in an idea

0:14 and they believe that a startup is the best way

0:16 to make that happen one of the things that is really

0:19 hard about good ideas is that original thought is really

0:23 hard most people just copy somebody else's thoughts most people

0:27 do what somebody else is doing and this is disastrous

0:31 because if you have one idea that starts to work

0:36 and you have 10,000 clones that follow it none

0:39 of you are going to be successful and the person

0:41 that started first that you all copied is very likely

0:43 to win you know in the year after Facebook started

0:46 there were well over a th000 social networks that started

0:48 in the year after Instagram started there were well

0:51 over a thousand photo sharing apps that started but you

0:54 want to do something that is new and different you

0:56 want to think of an idea that's not the same

0:58 idea everybody else is working on um the year

1:03 that I joined the board of helon which is a nuclear

1:06 fusion company um according to somebody's count there were 10,000

1:10 photo startups of some sort or other started that year

1:14 and one nuclear fusion startup started which seemed a little

1:18 bit off to me um but I think most

1:20 people just do what everybody else is doing right then

1:25 noticing problems in your own life is is certainly

1:27 a good way to do this um it's not true

1:29 that all successful startups are sted to solve a problem

1:33 that the founders have themselves but is a very high percentage

1:36 if you really go back and think about the transformational

1:39 companies um most of them start with someone solving

1:42 their own problem and then there's this idea of a Great

1:46 Wave which is that another thing you notice if

1:49 you go back and look at all the really

1:51 successful companies is there was this massive wave of Technology

1:57 coming you could see it in the distance and you

1:59 knew was going to just like crash over the shore

2:01 and through the city and you got out there early

2:06 on your surfboard um so I think it's really hard

2:10 to create a technology wave as a startup that takes

2:12 too much too many resources you can't do that but what

2:16 you can do is notice that a wave is

2:18 coming and University students are particularly good at this you

2:21 can notice that a technological wave is coming um

2:24 and while other people still think it's a toy or not

2:26 going to matter you can really get conviction behind it

2:29 and surf somebody else's wave and this by the way

2:34 I think is the reason that great compan there

2:37 tends to be these clusters in time when a lot

2:39 of great companies started so you know when the the internet

2:43 wave happened in the the mid to late 90s

2:47 um you had a huge cluster of companies that are

2:49 now very large Amazon Google um Yahoo I guess uh

2:55 others um and and then when the mobile wave

2:59 happened after after the iPhone came out 20072 2008 you

3:02 had this other big wave of uber Airbnb Snapchat um

3:07 Instagram WhatsApp in this short period of time right after

3:11 this this new wave started and a really good question

3:13 to ask is what is the wave that's starting right

3:15 now and where is the cluster of companies because we're

3:17 about due for another one where's that going to be