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‘Listening to old people is the biggest mistake’: Why OpenAI’s Sam Altman issued this career warning to IIT Delhi students

Sam Altman stressed that the real issue is underestimating the rapid evolution of AI.

3 min readNew DelhiFeb 24, 2026 11:11 AM IST

Sam Altman urged students to experiment with AI daily

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman interacted with students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, sharing insights on the biggest mistake youngsters make, while offering advice to students growing up alongside artificial intelligence (AI).

Responding to the question about the biggest mistake young people make, Altman stressed that the real issue is underestimating the rapid evolution of AI. He further urged students to experiment with AI daily.

“I think listening to old people is the biggest mistake young people make. For a predictor of what the world is going to be like going forward, I don’t think you should trust me for having good intuition of the rate of change. Young people always figure this out the best, and the world you are all inheriting is going to be very different, and you’ll have to quickly develop your own intuitions and trust them. But I think the traditional career advice is probably not going to work as well,” Altman said.

Watch here:

“I think listening to old people is the biggest mistake young people make. I think the traditional career advice is probably not going to work as well.”

Sam Altman was answering the quetsion –
“what is the biggest mistake you see young people make right now when they apparently… pic.twitter.com/rz3uM6tRNg

— Rohan Paul (@rohanpaul_ai) February 23, 2026

The video has since gone viral, prompting a wave of reactions. “His claim is deliberately provocative and recycled, every tech wave has produced versions of ignore the old advice,” a user wrote. “Honestly, figuring things out your own way is part of the journey. Times change, advice doesn’t always keep up. Good to question the classics sometimes!” another user commented.

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“The advice that worked for past generations was optimized for a different world. The ones winning now are writing their own playbook in real time. Altman is right on this one,” a third user reacted.

Speaking to Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, at Express Adda last week, Altman discussed the rapid advancement of AI capabilities. The OpenAI CEO shared that AI systems were just solving high school math problems till a year ago, but now they can solve research-level mathematical problems.

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