Quote

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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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Goal
Scale
Learn
Scales
Fast
Later
Early
Team
Days
Company
Hire

More quotes by Sam Altman

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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it's almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated.
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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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One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
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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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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
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You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.
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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.
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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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Most things are not as risky as they seem.
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
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Obsess about the quality of the product.
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
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I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
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You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.
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