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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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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Single
Grows
Company
Word
Keep
Matter
Alignment
Think
Productive
Thinking
Matters

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Every company has a rocky beginning.
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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.
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You cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist.
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The natural state of a start-up is to die most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.
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Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard...maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.
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These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
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Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.
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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.
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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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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
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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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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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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.
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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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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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So it's worth some real up front time to think through the long term value and the defensibility of the business.
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