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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Levels
Execution
Focus
Besides
Work
Fairly
Intensity
Intense
Piece
Level
Pieces

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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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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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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
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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.
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Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
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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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Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster
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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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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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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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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
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Growth and momentum are what a startup lives on and you always have to focus on maintaining these.
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To get the very best people- they have a lot of great options, and so it can easily take a year to recruit someone.
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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
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