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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Something
General
Building
Best
Need
Needs

More quotes by Sam Altman

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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
Sam Altman
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
Sam Altman
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So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.
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To get the very best people- they have a lot of great options, and so it can easily take a year to recruit someone.
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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.
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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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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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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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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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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
Sam Altman
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Every company has a rocky beginning.
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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
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
Sam Altman
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You're saying no ninety-seven times out of a hundred, and most founders find they have to make a very conscious effort to do this.
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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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
Sam Altman
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You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
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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... 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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Startups are very hard no matter what you do you may as well go after a big opportunity.
Sam Altman