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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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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Years
Employee
People
Spent
Months
Team
Year
Someone
Firsts
Interviewing
First
Hired

More quotes by Sam Altman

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You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.
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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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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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Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.
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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.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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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.
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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
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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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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.
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These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
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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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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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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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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
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Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.
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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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For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.
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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.
Sam Altman