The most successful founders set out to build a religion, not a company
Successful People (2013)
Sam Altman shares a line he heard from Qi Lu: successful people create companies, more successful people create countries, and the most successful create religions. He argues the biggest founders never set out to start a company — they are on a mission to build something closer to a religion, and a company just turns out to be the easiest vehicle. This also explains why the giant companies rarely come from pivots.
The most successful founders do not set out to create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so.