Quote

... 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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Think
Hire
Thinking
Bars
Tough
Single
Team
Company
Future
Everyone

More quotes by Sam Altman

Image
The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.
Sam Altman
Image
The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
Sam Altman
Image
Every company has a rocky beginning.
Sam Altman
Image
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.
Sam Altman
Image
... 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
Image
The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
Sam Altman
Image
Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
Sam Altman
Image
The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
Sam Altman
Image
A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
Sam Altman
Image
You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
Sam Altman
Image
One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
Sam Altman
Image
The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
Sam Altman
Image
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.
Sam Altman
Image
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.
Sam Altman
Image
The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
Sam Altman
Image
The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.
Sam Altman
Image
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
Image
Obsess about the quality of the product.
Sam Altman
Image
The role of the board is advice and consent. If the CEO does not lay out a clear strategy and tries to get the board to set one, it will usually end in disaster.
Sam Altman
Image
In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
Sam Altman