Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Time
Founders
Goals
Small
Everybody
Company
Goal
Given
Good
Overarching

More quotes by Sam Altman

Image
At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
Sam Altman
Image
Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
Sam Altman
Image
One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.
Sam Altman
Image
The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
Sam Altman
Image
Or a way to stay on strangers couches, that just sounds terrible all around.
Sam Altman
Image
Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
Sam Altman
Image
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
Image
You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.
Sam Altman
Image
If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
Sam Altman
Image
The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
Sam Altman
Image
... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
Sam Altman
Image
These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
Sam Altman
Image
The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
Sam Altman
Image
A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.
Sam Altman
Image
Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
Sam Altman
Image
Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
Sam Altman
Image
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
Image
One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
Sam Altman
Image
Growth and momentum are what a startup lives on and you always have to focus on maintaining these.
Sam Altman
Image
You only get points when you make something the market wants. So if you work really hard on the wrong things, no one will care.
Sam Altman