Sam Altman Quotes

You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.

You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.

One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.

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.

If someone is choosing between joining McKinsey or your startup it's very unlikely they're going to work out at the startup.

You can win with the best product, the best price, or the best experience.

Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.

So it's worth some real up front time to think through the long term value and the defensibility of the business.

Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped product.

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.

AirBnB happened because Brian Chesky couldn't pay his rent, but did have some space.

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.

You should be giving out a lot of equity to your employees.

If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.

We pretty much won't fund a company now where the founders don't have vested equity because it's just that hard to do.

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.

Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.

One of the keys to focus, and why I said cofounders that aren't friends really struggle, is that you can't be focused without good communication.

It's really easy to get PR with no results & it actually feels like you're really actually cool, but in a year you'll still have nothing.

It takes years and years, usually a decade, to create a great startup.

Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.

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.

Good startups usually take 10 years.

Most things are not as risky as they seem.

Execution gets divided into two key questions: 1) can you figure out what to do and 2) can you get it done.

AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.

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.

A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.

Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.

The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.

Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.

Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.

Before 20 or 25 employees, most companies are structured with everyone reporting to the founder. It's totally flat.

What you want to do is innovate on your product and your business model, management structure is not where I would try and innovate.

You're saying no ninety-seven times out of a hundred, and most founders find they have to make a very conscious effort to do this.

... 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.

As you grow, the productivity I think, goes down with the square of the number of employees if you don't make an effort.

As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company.

So if you want a culture where people work hard, & pay attention to detail, focus on the customer, are frugal: you have to do it yourself.

If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.

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

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.

You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.

Employees will only add more value over time.

In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.

Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.

Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.

... We probably funded a rate of something like one out of ten solo teams.