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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
Best
Done
Things
Predictor
Gotten
Team
Successful
Company
Talk

More quotes by Sam Altman

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If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
Sam Altman
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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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... but the pendulum has swung way out of whack here. A bad idea is still bad, and the pivot happy world we're in today feels suboptimal.
Sam Altman
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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
Sam Altman
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Losing focus is another way that founders get off track.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
Sam Altman
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The second part of how to hire: try not to.
Sam Altman
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As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.
Sam Altman
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Employees will only add more value over time.
Sam Altman
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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
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For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman