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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
People
Build
Smart
Choose
Stuff
Around
Matter

More quotes by Sam Altman

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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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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
Sam Altman
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Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
Sam Altman
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
Sam Altman
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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
Sam Altman
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The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
Sam Altman
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
Sam Altman
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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
Sam Altman
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You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
Sam Altman
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So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
Sam Altman
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
Sam Altman
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As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
Sam Altman
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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
Sam Altman
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If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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We talk to a team they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will be successful.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman