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In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
People
Hiring
Senior
Early
Usually
Stage
Mistake
Stuff
Done

More quotes by Sam Altman

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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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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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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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No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.
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Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
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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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... 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.
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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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One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.
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You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.
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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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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
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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.
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You cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist.
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