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I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Really
Single
Grows
Company
Repeatable
Culture
Ongoing
Business
Excellence
Doe
Innovation
Thing
Hardest
Believe
Building

More quotes by Sam Altman

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I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
Sam Altman
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Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
Sam Altman
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
Sam Altman
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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.
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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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.
Sam Altman
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The second part of how to hire: try not to.
Sam Altman
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You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
Sam Altman
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1 of the hardest parts about being a founder, is that there are a 100 important things competing for your attention each day.
Sam Altman
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Ideas by themselves are not worth anything, only executing well is what creates value.
Sam Altman
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
Sam Altman
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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
Sam Altman
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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
Sam Altman
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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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One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
Sam Altman
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Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.
Sam Altman