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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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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
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Focussed
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More quotes by Sam Altman

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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
Sam Altman
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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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The second part of how to hire: try not to.
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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... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
Sam Altman
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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
Sam Altman
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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
Sam Altman
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You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
Sam Altman
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
Sam Altman
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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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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The natural state of a start-up is to die most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.
Sam Altman
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To get the very best people- they have a lot of great options, and so it can easily take a year to recruit someone.
Sam Altman
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Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.
Sam Altman
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You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
Sam Altman
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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.
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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Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster
Sam Altman