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Startups are very hard no matter what you do you may as well go after a big opportunity.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Opportunity
Bigs
May
Wells
Well
Matter
Hard

More quotes by 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
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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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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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The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.
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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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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
Sam Altman
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Growth solves (nearly) all problems
Sam Altman
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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
Sam Altman
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If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.
Sam Altman
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Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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Later, you should learn to hire fast and scale up the company, but in the early days the goal should be not to hire. Not to hire.
Sam Altman
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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
Sam Altman
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So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
Sam Altman
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
Sam Altman
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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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Employees will only add more value over time.
Sam Altman