Quote

The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Looks
Worth
Good
Seem
Like
Terrible
Often
Seems
Best
Stealing
Ideas
Beginning
Look
Truly

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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.
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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.
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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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So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
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You don't need to make the structure complicated, in fact you shouldn't. All you need is for every employee to know who their manager is.
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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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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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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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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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I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
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Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.
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