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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
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More quotes by Sam Altman

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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
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... the thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.
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If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.
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One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.
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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
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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.
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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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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
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When lack of structure fails, it fails all at once. What works totally fine from 0-20 employees, is disastrous at 30.
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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 compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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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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The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
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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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Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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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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