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You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Make
Makers
Decisions
Choose
Team
Decision

More quotes by Sam Altman

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The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.
Sam Altman
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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
Sam Altman
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... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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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
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
Sam Altman
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A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
Sam Altman
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You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.
Sam Altman
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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
Sam Altman
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If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.
Sam Altman
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You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.
Sam Altman
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In the beginning of a company, there is no management and this actually works really well.
Sam Altman
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The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.
Sam Altman
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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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... 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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So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
Sam Altman
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... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you you know fires in a day.
Sam Altman
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The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.
Sam Altman