“Intelligence is easy to tell in 10 minutes. Determination is much harder.”
This observation captures a practical hiring and investing rule used by Sam Altman: sharp thinking can appear fast, but dogged will, the habit of finishing hard things, only becomes clear over months or years.
The line has circulated from clips of Altman explaining how Y Combinator evaluates founders.
PERSONALITY AND LIFE
Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985 in Chicago and grew up in the St Louis area.
He studied computer science at Stanford before leaving to start the geosocial app Loopt, later joining and leading the startup accelerator Y Combinator and, since 2019, serving as CEO of OpenAI.
Altman combines product judgment, public speaking and a talent for spotting ambitious projects; his public blog and long interviews show a thoughtful, intense leader interested in the long-term impacts of technology.
EXPLAINING THE QUOTE AND ITS PHILOSOPHY
“Intelligence is easy to tell in 10 minutes. Determination is much harder.”
In plain terms, Altman is saying: you can see bright thinking quickly, but you cannot see whether someone will stick with hard work from a single meeting.
Intelligence, clear answers, fast grasp of ideas, is visible in conversation.
Determination, however, is a pattern of behaviour: returning after setbacks, learning from failure and consistently choosing hard things.
Altman has made this distinction when describing how YC decides in short interviews what founders might achieve, noting that the trait they most often misread is determination.
Philosophically, the line privileges process over Polish. In Altman’s view, teams that outlast problems by steady effort create lasting value; ingenious but fleeting ideas rarely scale without persistent execution.
He pushes leaders to design systems that test for endurance, trial projects, long sprints and careful follow-ups, rather than rely only on first impressions or rsum items.
His public remarks and blog emphasise long-term thinking and the value of hard, disciplined work in building important technologies.
QUOTES BY SAM ALTMAN
- The question I ask myself almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?
- You want a company full of missionaries, not mercenaries.
- Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large competitors.
- AI will change everything—and that’s both exciting and terrifying.
Altman’s rule is a useful reminder: hire for thinking, but double-check for staying power. Intelligence opens doors; determination keeps you in the room and finishes the job.
In projects that take years, grit, not merely a bright first impression, proves the true predictor of success.
