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You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Successful
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More quotes by Sam Altman

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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.
Sam Altman
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The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.
Sam Altman
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Momentum and growth are the lifeblood of startups. This is probably in the top three secrets of executing well.
Sam Altman
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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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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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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For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.
Sam Altman
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... 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
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
Sam Altman
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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
Sam Altman
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
Sam Altman
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
Sam Altman
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... the thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.
Sam Altman
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One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
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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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
Sam Altman
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As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
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