Sam Altman's Method for Clear Thinking

David Perell • March 17, 2025

David Perell

About

Hey! I'm a writer, teacher, and podcaster. People call me "The Writing Guy." That's because my career orbits around teaching people to express their ideas in writing. My main thing these days is a show called How I Write, where I interview top writers about their creative process. Previous guests include Sam Altman, Tim Ferriss, and Marc Andreessen. I also run a website called Writing Examples to teach people how to write with personality. Each article dissects a piece of writing from a famous writer like Charles Dickens or Jerry Seinfeld to give people X-Ray vision into what makes the words come alive. Before doing all this, I ran a cohort-based course called Write of Passage, where I taught more than 2,000 students from more than 70 countries how to write and develop ideas.

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Video Description

Full episode with Sam Altman — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pxmdmlJCG0 Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, explains his note-taking system and how he thinks about writing. I also made a website that helps you learn from the best writing of all-time: https://writingexamples.com/ Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell