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We talk to a team they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will be successful.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Successful
Company
Talk
Best
Done
Things
Predictor
Gotten
Team

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard...maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.
Sam Altman
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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
Sam Altman
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You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
Sam Altman
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
Sam Altman
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You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
Sam Altman
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For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.
Sam Altman
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... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
Sam Altman
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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
Sam Altman
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In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.
Sam Altman
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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
Sam Altman
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You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.
Sam Altman
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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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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Every company has a rocky beginning.
Sam Altman
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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
Sam Altman
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Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
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.
Sam Altman
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
Sam Altman