Quote

You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Company
Refinement
Values
Breakthrough
Often
Complexes
Three
Complex
Two
Companies
Best
Innovation
Great
Value
Incremental
Create
Coordination

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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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These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
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You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.
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You cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist.
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Startups are very hard no matter what you do you may as well go after a big opportunity.
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Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.
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Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.
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One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
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The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.
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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
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Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
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When lack of structure fails, it fails all at once. What works totally fine from 0-20 employees, is disastrous at 30.
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So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.
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Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.
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