OpenAI's Sam Altman says he envies Gen Z dropouts for their 'incredibly wide' career opportunities

"I’m envious of the current generation of 20-year-old dropouts," Altman said during an interview at the DevDay conference on Monday, according to Fortune. "Because the amount of stuff you can build... the opportunity space is so incredibly wide."

Altman, who left Stanford in 2005 after two years of studying computer science, co-founded Loopt, a location-sharing social media app, at 19, Business Insider reported. After Loopt was acquired, he became president of startup accelerator Y Combinator and later co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Despite his success in tech, Altman shared a sense of longing to pursue other business ideas. "The degree to which OpenAI is, like, taking over all of my mental space, and I don’t get to go think about how to build a new startup, is a little bit sad," he said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo courtesy of OpenAI

Altman has shared his evolving views on higher education, expressing doubts about its effectiveness. Speaking on the "This Past Weekend" podcast recently, he reflected on AI’s impact on education, saying, "I already think college is, like, maybe not working great for most people but I think if you fast forward 18 years it’s going to look like a very very different thing ."

He also noted that his own children would "probably not" attend college, suggesting future generations will grow up alongside technologies like AI.

In Silicon Valley, college dropouts have long been celebrated, with success stories such as Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, and Mark Zuckerberg. However, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos noted that such cases are exceptional, adding that young people should finish college and first gain experience by working at a successful company to improve their chances of future success.