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

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.
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... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.
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... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
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... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
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You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
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Startups are very hard no matter what you do you may as well go after a big opportunity.
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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.
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... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.
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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.
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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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You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.
Sam Altman