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
Explain
Sign
Complicated
Takes
Almost
Always
Sentence
Sentences

More quotes by Sam Altman

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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
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You only get points when you make something the market wants. So if you work really hard on the wrong things, no one will care.
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You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
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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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You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.
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If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.
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You can have a startup and one other thing, you can have a family, but you probably can't have many other things.
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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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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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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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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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... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you you know fires in a day.
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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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The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.
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Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.
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We talk to a team they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will be successful.
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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
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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