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You're saying no ninety-seven times out of a hundred, and most founders find they have to make a very conscious effort to do this.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Hundred
Saying
Effort
Times
Find
Founders
Make
Ninety
Seven
Conscious

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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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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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
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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.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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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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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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.
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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.
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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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Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
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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.
Sam Altman
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A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.
Sam Altman
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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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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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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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A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
Sam Altman
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No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.
Sam Altman