Rumours of the pen’s demise have been circulating for many years. Early tablets were supposed to play the role of Luca Brasi, yet pens continue to live another day. And it’s finding plenty of help from tech CEOs, like OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

In a recent interview with David Perell, Altman spent several minutes discussing how he puts his thoughts together. The process involves pen and paper. “There’s all these, like, fancy notebooks in the world,” said Altman. “You don’t want those. You definitely want a spiral notebook, because one thing that’s important is you can rip pages out frequently. And you also want it to lie flat and open on the table. And if you like open pages, you want them to be able to lay like this…. You definitely want to be able to rip pages out.”

Personally, spiral notebooks are a no-no because it doesn’t easily fit inside the pocket and the binding can be uncomfortable. Perhaps Altman needs to look at a reporter’s notebook. The top-bound notebook too can lie flat and is of a size that you can hold in one hand and write with the other. It’s far more comfortable than the A6 notebook Altman is seen holding.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

I am sure if a smartphone fits in your pocket, the chances of a reporter’s notebook doing the same are high. With winter setting in, you can even keep the notebook in the jacket pocket.

But what’s interesting is that Altman prefers to write and not key in notes on his phone. Equally interesting is his choice of pen. He recommends the Uni-Ball Micro 0.5 while his other recommendation is the “Muji 0.36 or 0.37” in dark blue ink. He is probably referring to the Muji Gel Ink Cap Ballpoint Pen in 0.38mm, which is on the expensive side.

Now I am stuck between keyboards, but there was a time — and not too long ago — when it was all about writing. My favourite is the Pilot Precise v5 or v7. Not the cheapest but use it once and you will feel the difference. Even after using it for hours, there will be zero hand cramps.

Art of calligraphy

To learn about the power of writing on paper, one needs to turn to the late Steve Jobs. He respected the art of calligraphy and spent months at a stretch hanging out at Reed College mastering it.

“Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country,” Jobs said when he delivered Stanford’s 2005 graduation speech. “Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed…I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture.”

The Mac was the first computer to deploy beautiful typography, with every font proportionally spaced out. He was the first to give users a real choice of fonts that could easily carry emotion as well as clarity of thought. It’s another story that he didn’t like the idea of the stylus, which is merely inspired by the greatest writing tool of all — our fingers.

OneNote to notebooks

Bill Gates, Jobs’s friendly rival, also knows the power of the pen. If you look at the Scheduled Task Wizard panel in an old version of Windows, you will see an image of a fountain pen.

The voracious reader likes to take detailed notes during meetings. Instead of a top-to-bottom approach, he divides a page into quadrants, each meant for a different thought. Not that he hates digital solutions… at one point he spoke highly of a software called OneNote. When he was involved in the day-to-day functioning of Microsoft, he used the whiteboard and different colour pens during brainstorming. These days he prefers jotting down thoughts.

Note narrative

Taking a different route is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The man doesn’t believe in PowerPoint presentations. It’s about the memo idea.

His method doesn’t strictly have the pen-and-paper approach but there is a substantial degree of note-taking involved.

Before a meeting, he expects executives to receive a lengthy narrative memo, clearly getting into details. Participants are expected to read memos in silence and then jot down points in the margins. This is done to promote thoughtful conversations. If you can’t get your idea down on paper, no PowerPoint presentation would help.