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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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
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If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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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.
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Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
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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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Employees will only add more value over time.
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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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Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
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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.
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Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.
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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.
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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
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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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You don't need to make the structure complicated, in fact you shouldn't. All you need is for every employee to know who their manager is.
Sam Altman
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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
Sam Altman
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A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.
Sam Altman