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Most things are not as risky as they seem.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Things
Risky
Seem
Seems

More quotes by Sam Altman

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The role of the board is advice and consent. If the CEO does not lay out a clear strategy and tries to get the board to set one, it will usually end in disaster.
Sam Altman
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If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.
Sam Altman
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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
Sam Altman
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Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
Sam Altman
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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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If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.
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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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
Sam Altman
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... the thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.
Sam Altman
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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.
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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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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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.
Sam Altman
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Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
Sam Altman
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Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.
Sam Altman
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You can have a startup and one other thing, you can have a family, but you probably can't have many other things.
Sam Altman
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... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
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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If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.
Sam Altman