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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
Months
Team
Year
Someone
Firsts
Interviewing
First
Hired
Years
Employee
People
Spent

More quotes by Sam Altman

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If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.
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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
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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.
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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.
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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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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.
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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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Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.
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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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The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
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Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
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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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Obsess about the quality of the product.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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Most things are not as risky as they seem.
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