Sam Altman Famous Quotes & Sayings
100 Sam Altman Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation.
Location is the sole difference between mobile and traditional Web.— Sam Altman
Why I said cofounders that aren't friends really struggle, is that you can't be focused without good communication.— Sam Altman
For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.— Sam Altman
If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.— Sam Altman
Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard ... maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.— Sam Altman
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
If the Reddit community cannot learn to balance authenticity and compassion, it may be a great website, but it will never be a truly great community.— Sam Altman
It's become popular in recent years to say that the idea doesn't matter.— Sam Altman
People appreciate when you make an effort to speak their language.— Sam Altman
I grew up with a computer, and many of my friends were people I met online.— Sam Altman
Employees will only add more value over time.— Sam Altman
You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.— Sam Altman
In the early days of a startup, people's compensation is whatever you negotiate with a founder and it's all over the place.— Sam Altman
A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.— Sam Altman
A lot of people treat choosing their cofounder with even less importance than they put on hiring. Don't do this.— Sam Altman
Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.— Sam Altman
The best source by far for hiring is people that you already know and people that other employees in the company already know.— Sam Altman
You should be giving out a lot of equity to your employees.— Sam Altman
One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.— Sam Altman
You want to think about what is the path for my first 10 or 15 employees going to be as the company grows.— Sam Altman
As you grow, the productivity I think, goes down with the square of the number of employees if you don't make an effort.— Sam Altman
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.— Sam Altman
Share results (financial and key metrics) with the company every month.— Sam Altman
The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.— Sam Altman
Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large competitors.— Sam Altman
The only way to generate sustained exponential growth is to make whatever you're making sufficiently good.— Sam Altman
If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.— Sam Altman
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
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
One of the pieces of advice that we give at YC is: try to work together on a project rather than just doing an interview.— Sam Altman
Stay focused and don't try to do too many things at once. Care about execution quality.— Sam Altman
Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?— Sam Altman
You really want a company full of missionaries, not mercenaries.— Sam Altman
Every first time founder waits too long, everyone hopes that an employee will turn around. But the right answer is to fire fast ...— Sam Altman
We hear again and again from founders, that they wish they had waited to start a startup until they came up with an idea they really loved.— Sam Altman
Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'— Sam Altman
Growth solves (nearly) all problems— Sam Altman
For early employees you want people that have somewhat of a risk-taking attitude.— Sam Altman
There is a long history of founders returning to companies and doing great things. Founders are able to set the vision for their companies with an authority no one else can.— Sam Altman
Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.— Sam Altman
Virgin America flyers tend to be more likely to be using a mobile device and tapping social networks - even at 35,000 feet.— Sam Altman
What is OK is to spend money for productivity. What is not OK is just to light money on fire.— Sam Altman
Once your product is working, switch from not caring about this to caring about this a little bit.— Sam Altman
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
Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.— Sam Altman
Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.— Sam Altman
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
Fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.— Sam Altman
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
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
The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.— Sam Altman
You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.— Sam Altman
One of the great and terrible things about starting a start up is that you get no credit for trying.— Sam Altman
So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.— Sam Altman
If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy your own servers and hire someone to manage it. Now, that's unheard of.— Sam Altman
At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful.— Sam Altman
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
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 ...— Sam Altman
The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.— Sam Altman
One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.— Sam Altman
M&A negotiations feel really fun. This is one of the biggest killers of companies, is they entertain acquisition conversations.— Sam Altman
As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.— Sam Altman
You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.— Sam Altman
If you have a startup that's keeping it up at night because you think it's so great, then you should do that.— Sam Altman
I don't invest in companies where my mental model is that they need to get themselves acquired in the next few years - or ever.— Sam Altman
AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.— Sam Altman
The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.— Sam Altman
We talk to a team, they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will go on to be successful.— Sam Altman
The thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.— Sam Altman
You'll get more support on a hard, important, project than a derivative one.— Sam Altman
There are 3 things I look for when I hire people. Are they smart? Do they get things done? Do I want to spend a lot of time around them?— Sam Altman
Just put a little pin in your mind: when you cross 50 employees, there are a new set of HR rules that you have to comply with.— Sam Altman
Everyone is looking for the hack, the secret to success without hard work.— Sam Altman
Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list. Prefer a handful of truly close friends to a hundred acquaintances.— Sam Altman
It's easy to say, 'I'm going to build something that already exists,' but it's difficult to clearly and succinctly describe something new.— Sam Altman
The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge.— Sam Altman
I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager.— Sam Altman
Developing a personal connection with anyone you're trying to do a big deal with is really important.— Sam Altman
You have to find a small market in which you can get a monopoly, and then quickly expand.— Sam Altman
Investors will sort of like write the check and then, despite a lot of promises, don't usually do that much; sometimes they do.— Sam Altman
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
Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.— Sam Altman
The best founders work on things that seem small but they move really quickly. They get things done really quickly.— Sam Altman
No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.— Sam Altman
Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.— Sam Altman
I think that inexpensive sources of planet-friendly energy are one of the most important things for us to pursue.— Sam Altman
When lack of structure fails, it fails all at once. What works totally fine from 0-20 employees, is disastrous at 30.— Sam Altman
Most great companies in tech have been built by personal referrals for the first ... at least 100 employees and often many more.— Sam Altman
One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed, and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.— Sam Altman
Facebook and Instagram are spiritual brothers.— Sam Altman
Do I think every culture will embrace location technology? Yes.— Sam Altman
What you want to do is innovate on your product and your business model, management structure is not where I would try and innovate.— Sam Altman
Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.— Sam Altman
Momentum and growth are the lifeblood of startups. This is probably in the top three secrets of executing well.— Sam Altman
Experience matters for some roles and not others.— Sam Altman
The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important.— Sam Altman
You're either not hiring at all or it's probably your single biggest block of time.— Sam Altman
You can win with the best product, the best price, or the best experience.— Sam Altman
People that are really smart and that can learn new things can almost always find a role in the company as time goes on.— Sam Altman
The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.— Sam Altman
