Sam Altman Quotes
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
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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?
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Momentum and growth are the lifeblood of startups. This is probably in the top three secrets of executing well.
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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
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... 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.
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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.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.
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You can't be focussed without really great communication
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Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.
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In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.
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The way to have a company that executes well is you have to execute well yourself.
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M&A negotiations feel really fun. This is one of the biggest killers of companies, is they entertain acquisition conversations.
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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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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.
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The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.
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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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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.
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I myself used to believe ideas didn't matter that much, but I'm very sure that's wrong now.
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What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
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I prefer to invest in a company that's going after a small but rapidly growing market than a big but slow growing one.
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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
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As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company.
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Great execution is at least 10 times more important and a 100 times harder than a good idea.
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