Quote

If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it's almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Always
Sentence
Sentences
Explain
Sign
Complicated
Takes
Almost

More quotes by Sam Altman

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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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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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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.
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What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
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... but the pendulum has swung way out of whack here. A bad idea is still bad, and the pivot happy world we're in today feels suboptimal.
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For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.
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... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
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... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
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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.
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... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
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Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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Starting a business is like riding a wave between life and death. If you can hang on long enough, you're bound to succeed
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A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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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.
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
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Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster
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So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.
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Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
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