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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
Sam Altman
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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Fact
Often
Facts
Hire
Firsts
Mediocre
First
Kill
Single
Team
Five
More quotes by Sam Altman
Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
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Obsess about the quality of the product.
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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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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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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the 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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You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
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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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Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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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 need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
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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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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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You need unstoppable people. You want people that are just going to get it done.
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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.
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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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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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