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The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Really
Hire
Early
Cost
Team
High
Getting
Wrong

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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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You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
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No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.
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Ideas by themselves are not worth anything, only executing well is what creates value.
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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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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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Or a way to stay on strangers couches, that just sounds terrible all around.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers. It's easy to get sucked into an infrastructure rewrite death spiral.
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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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Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
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Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
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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.
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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.
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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 need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.
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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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When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.
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