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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.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
First
Employees
Feel
Founding
Feels
Employee
Like
Team
Company
Talk
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Firsts

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Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
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In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.
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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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I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.
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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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Growth solves (nearly) all problems
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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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Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.
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Or a way to stay on strangers couches, that just sounds terrible all around.
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You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.
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Obsess about the quality of the product.
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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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You need unstoppable people. You want people that are just going to get it done.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
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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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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
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Unfortunately the trick to great execution is to say no a lot.
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To get the very best people- they have a lot of great options, and so it can easily take a year to recruit someone.
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