Quote

Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers. It's easy to get sucked into an infrastructure rewrite death spiral.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Getting
Rewrite
Easy
Sucked
Death
Suspicious
Work
Infrastructure
Customers
Product
Products
Spiral
Building
Spirals

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.
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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
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Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
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I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.
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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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... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
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... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
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Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
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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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The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
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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 can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.
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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.
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The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
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In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.
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