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Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
People
Team
Worst
Company
Actually
Experience
Running
Think
Firing
Thinking
Parts

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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.
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Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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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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Most things are not as risky as they seem.
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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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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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You can have a startup and one other thing, you can have a family, but you probably can't have many other things.
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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
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You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.
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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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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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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.
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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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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 second part of how to hire: try not to.
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You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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One of the great and terrible things about starting a start up is that you get no credit for trying.
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