I asked, “If you could pick one trait that would predict how someone would turn out, what would it be?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “How willing they are to change their mind about what they think they know.”

The most valuable people, he continued, weren’t the ones with the best initial ideas, but the ones with the ability to quickly change their minds. They were focused on outcome over ego. By contrast, he said, the people most likely to fail were those obsessed with minute details that supported their point of view.

Mississippi was seeing. He put it simply: “if you really want to do something with somebody else, really want to work with that person, the first thing you have to do is make a personal connection. You have to find out who it is you are working with.”

I think of seeing as the most important component of trust-building.

Both his media savvy and dealmaking, two pillars of his rise, rest on his remarkable ability to tell a good story. In this Altman is a natural. Even knowing as you watch him that his company would ultimately fail, you can’t help but be compelled by what he’s saying. He speaks with a casual ease about the singular positioning of his company. His startup is part of the grand, unstoppable trajectory of technology. Consumers and advertisers are clamoring for the service. Don’t bet against him—his success is inevitable.

As Sutskever rallied researchers to give him their best ideas, Brockman threw himself into the work of developing the right organizational culture. Some years later, Brockman would recount to me his thinking. To prepare, he read every book he could find on ambitious science and technology undertakings in US history: the transcontinental railroad, Thomas Edison’s light bulb, the early network of computers that would lay the groundwork for the modern Web. He absorbed them like religious texts, searching for hints and guidance on how to design his own endeavor.

Early in his career, Altman observed that new CEOs only succeeded if they “refounded” the company. He did this with conviction at YC when he inherited the presidency. He created new programs, including a new fund, to expand the accelerator’s support for startups at different stages. He moved into hard technologies—those that required ambitious scientific innovation, including nuclear fusion, quantum computing, and self-driving cars. Already a prestigious name brand, YC’s sphere of influence grew from a couple hundred companies to thousands a year, turning it into a center of gravity in Silicon Valley. “The thing that I’m most proud of is we really built an empire,” Altman said after stepping down as president.