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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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More quotes by Sam Altman

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The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
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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
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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 good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.
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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.
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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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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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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
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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.
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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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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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Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.
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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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Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman