Sam Altman Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  Team, Goal, Should

  5 Copy quote

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

  Sam Altman

  Team, Years, Want

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• You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Animal, Able

  "Lecture 2: Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II". Sam Altman's "How To Start a Startup" lecture to the class at Stanford University in Stanford, California, genius.com. 2014.

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• Facebook has this famous poster that says move fast and break things. But at the same time they manage to be obsessed with quality.

  Sam Altman

  Moving, Quality, Posters

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• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Real, Worry, Thumbs

  "Lecture 2: Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II". "How to Start a Startup" lecture, Stanford, 1pdf.net. September 25, 2014.

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• If you don't love and believe in what you're building, you're likely to give up at some point along the way.

  Sam Altman

  Giving Up, Believe, Way

  "Lecture 1: How to Start a Startup". Sam Altman's lecture to the class at Stanford University in Stanford, California, genius.com. 2014.

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

  Sam Altman

  Needs, Building Something, Realizing

  9 Copy quote

• A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.

  Sam Altman

  Boards, Used, Members

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• For early employees you want people that have somewhat of a risk-taking attitude.

  Sam Altman

  Attitude, Team, People

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• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Winning, Vision, Momentum

  "Lecture 2: Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II". "How to Start a Startup" lecture, Stanford, genius.com. September 25, 2014.

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

  Sam Altman

  Team, Forget, Employee

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• More important than starting any startup, is getting to know a lot of potential co-founders.

  Sam Altman

  Important, Starting, Founders

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• At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Needs, Desperate

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• Keep salaries low and equity high. Keep the organization as flat as you can.

  Sam Altman

  Organization, Salary, Lows

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

  Sam Altman

  Killers, Indecisiveness

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

  Sam Altman

  Team, Years, People

  5 Copy quote

• Remember that you are more likely to die because you execute badly than get crushed by a competitor.

  Sam Altman

  Remember, Crushed, Competitors

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• Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.

  Sam Altman

  Messages, Needs, Figures

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• Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, Perfect, Why Now

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• No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Ideas, Long

  "There's Only One Way To Make Your Company Really Grow" by Jay Yarow, www.businessinsider.com. December 04, 2013.

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• In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.

  Sam Altman

  Years, Willing, Ten

  12 Copy quote

• The best people know that they should join a rocketship.

  Sam Altman

  Team, People, Should

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

  Sam Altman

  Giving, Should, Employee

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• It's better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it's still bad to be a solo founder.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Solo, Founders

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• 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

  Team, Fire, Long

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