Sharing excerpts from a November 2018 conversation with Craig Cannon, a16z describes Altman’s year without a job as one of the highest-return years of his career. Altman said he explored his interests, met people working in different fields and helped when something seemed interesting and needed help. Those people, he said, taught him things or later offered him chances to invest in their startups. “Almost all of it didn’t work out,” he said, but “the seeds were planted for things that worked in deep ways later.”