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Starting a business is like riding a wave between life and death. If you can hang on long enough, you're bound to succeed

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Death
Riding
Enough
Bound
Long
Hang
Life
Bounds
Like
Wave
Starting
Succeed
Business

More quotes by Sam Altman

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... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
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Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
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Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.
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You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.
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If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.
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Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.
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I believe in fighting with investors to reduce the amount of equity they get and then being as generous as you possibly can with employees.
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