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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Founders
Level
Levels
Giving
Thing
Kills

More quotes by Sam Altman

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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
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When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.
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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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At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
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Most things are not as risky as they seem.
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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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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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You need unstoppable people. You want people that are just going to get it done.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.
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The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.
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Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
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... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
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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 addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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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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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.
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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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Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.
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