Sam Altman Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Baby, Trying, Conviction

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• 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

  Thinking, Numbers, Squares

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

  Sam Altman

  Communication, People, Pairs

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• You want to continue to be run by great products, not process for it's own sake.

  Sam Altman

  Running, Sake, Want

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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.

  Sam Altman

  Advice, Trying, Doe

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• 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

  Believe, Innovation, Excellence

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• You need someone that behaves like James Bond more than you need someone that is an expert in some particular domain.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Experts, Needs

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• As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.

  Sam Altman

  Band, Feels, Grows

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• You'll get more support on a hard, important, project than a derivative one.

  Sam Altman

  Support, Important, Derivatives

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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.

  Sam Altman

  Thinking, Ideas, Trying

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• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Struggle, Communication, Said

  "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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• You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.

  Sam Altman

  Needs, World, Path

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• The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.

  Sam Altman

  Thinking, Matter, Grows

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• Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, Ambitious, Remember

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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.

  Sam Altman

  Real, Thinking, Long

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

  Sam Altman

  Track, Looks, Records

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• Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.

  Sam Altman

  Goal, Given, Founders

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• There are exceptions of course, but most companies start with a great idea - not a pivot.

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, Company, Great Idea

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• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Effort, Saying No, Seven

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• You're either not hiring at all or it's probably your single biggest block of time.

  Sam Altman

  Block, Team, Hiring

  "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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• The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Cost

  "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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• 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.

  Sam Altman

  Team, Founders, Equity

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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.

  Sam Altman

  Crazy, Lines, Sides

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• ... but the pendulum has swung way out of whack here. A bad idea is still bad, and the pivot happy world we're in today feels suboptimal.

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, World, Today

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• You have to be intense. This only comes from the CEO, this only comes from the founders.

  Sam Altman

  Intense, Ceo, Founders

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