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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
Work
Fairly
Intensity
Intense
Piece
Level
Pieces
Levels
Execution
Focus
Besides

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As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
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So it's worth some real up front time to think through the long term value and the defensibility of the business.
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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
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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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A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.
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Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
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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.
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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.
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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.
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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
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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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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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The company just needs to see you as like this maniacal execution machine.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.
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