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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.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Going
Join
Think
Works
Thinking
Team
Idea
Everyone
Ideas
Come
Great

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Growth solves (nearly) all problems
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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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Ideas by themselves are not worth anything, only executing well is what creates value.
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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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We talk to a team they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will be successful.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.
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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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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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1 of the hardest parts about being a founder, is that there are a 100 important things competing for your attention each day.
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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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... 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.
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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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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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Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
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You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.
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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.
Sam Altman