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

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
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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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Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.
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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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The second part of how to hire: try not to.
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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
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... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.
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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
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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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You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.
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... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you you know fires in a day.
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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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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
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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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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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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.
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
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The natural state of a start-up is to die most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.
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