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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.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Year
Someone
Best
Take
Great
Recruit
Years
Options
People
Easily
Team

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
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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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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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... but the pendulum has swung way out of whack here. A bad idea is still bad, and the pivot happy world we're in today feels suboptimal.
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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
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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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The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
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You don't need to make the structure complicated, in fact you shouldn't. All you need is for every employee to know who their manager is.
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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
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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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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.
Sam Altman
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
Sam Altman
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
Sam Altman
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Ideas by themselves are not worth anything, only executing well is what creates value.
Sam Altman
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Obsess about the quality of the product.
Sam Altman
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Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.
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Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.
Sam Altman
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... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman