Sam Altman Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Track, Records

  4 Copy quote

• You never want to be in a place where an employee has vested 3 out of the 4 years of stock and they start thinking about leaving.

  Sam Altman

  Thinking, Years, Leaving

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Long, Life And Death, Riding

  4 Copy quote

• Many of the best YC companies have had phenomenally small number of employees for their first year, sometimes none besides the founders.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Small Numbers, Years

  4 Copy quote

• We've seen a lot of data at YC now, and the most successful companies and the ones where the investors do the best... end up giving a lot of stock out to employees- year after year after year.

  Sam Altman

  Successful, Data, Years

  4 Copy quote

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

  Sam Altman

  Metrics, Week, Should

  4 Copy quote

• It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.

  Sam Altman

  Moving, Quality, Easy

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Team, Writing, Promise

  4 Copy quote

• If you ever take your foot off the gas pedal, things will spiral out of control, snowball downwards.

  Sam Altman

  Feet, Spirals, Pedals

  4 Copy quote

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

  Sam Altman

  Team, Thinking, Employee

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Keys, Goal

  4 Copy quote

• Growth solves (nearly) all problems

  Sam Altman

  Growth, Problem, Solve

  4 Copy quote

• Every company has a rocky beginning.

  Sam Altman

  Company

  4 Copy quote

• You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.

  Sam Altman

  Moving, People, Quality

  4 Copy quote

• Share results (financial and key metrics) with the company every month.

  Sam Altman

  Keys, Metrics, Months

  4 Copy quote

• ... 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

  Fire, Everyday, Knows

  4 Copy quote

• Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard...maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.

  Sam Altman

  Hard Work, Enough, Hard

  4 Copy quote

• ... 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

  Team, Firsts, Employee

  4 Copy quote

• If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.

  Sam Altman

  Years, Work Out, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.

  Sam Altman

  Want Something, Deals, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• It's better to have a few users love your product than for a lot of users to sort of like it.

  Sam Altman

  Love You, Products, Users

  4 Copy quote

• There's at least a hundred times more people with great ideas than people that are willing to put in the effort to execute them well.

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, People, Effort

  4 Copy quote

• Growth and momentum are what a startup lives on and you always have to focus on maintaining these.

  Sam Altman

  Focus, Growth, Momentum

  4 Copy quote

• We talk to a team they've gotten new things done, that's the best predictor we have that a company will be successful.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Successful, Done

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

  4 Copy quote

• Momentum and growth are the lifeblood of startups. This is probably in the top three secrets of executing well.

  Sam Altman

  Secret, Growth, Three

  4 Copy quote

Page 5 of 10

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin