1.
No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
Sam Altman
2.
You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.
Sam Altman
3.
Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
Sam Altman
4.
Obsess about the quality of the product.
Sam Altman
5.
Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
Sam Altman
6.
In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.
Sam Altman
7.
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
8.
You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
Sam Altman
9.
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
10.
Execution gets divided into two key questions: 1) can you figure out what to do and 2) can you get it done.
Sam Altman
11.
Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
Sam Altman
12.
I prefer to invest in a company that's going after a small but rapidly growing market than a big but slow growing one.
Sam Altman
13.
1 of the hardest parts about being a founder, is that there are a 100 important things competing for your attention each day.
Sam Altman
14.
The best people know that they should join a rocketship.
Sam Altman
15.
What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
Sam Altman
16.
I believe in fighting with investors to reduce the amount of equity they get and then being as generous as you possibly can with employees.
Sam Altman
17.
If someone is difficult to talk to, if someone cannot communicate clearly, it's a real problem in terms of their likelihood to work out.
Sam Altman
18.
Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they themselves excited about what they are doing, but they also get you excited
Sam Altman
19.
Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster
Sam Altman
20.
The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.
Sam Altman
21.
For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.
Sam Altman
22.
Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.
Sam Altman
23.
Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
Sam Altman
24.
One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.
Sam Altman
25.
AirBnB happened because Brian Chesky couldn't pay his rent, but did have some space.
Sam Altman
26.
A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.
Sam Altman
27.
Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.
Sam Altman
28.
The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
Sam Altman
29.
The tenth social network, and limited only to college students with no money, also terrible. Myspace had won.
Sam Altman
30.
Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
Sam Altman
31.
AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
Sam Altman
32.
I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
Sam Altman
33.
People that are really smart and that can learn new things can almost always find a role in the company as time goes on.
Sam Altman
34.
Someday, you need to build a business that's difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea.
Sam Altman
35.
... 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
36.
Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
Sam Altman
37.
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
38.
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
39.
The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
Sam Altman
40.
Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers. It's easy to get sucked into an infrastructure rewrite death spiral.
Sam Altman
41.
Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
Sam Altman
42.
You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
Sam Altman
43.
If you look at successful pivots, they almost always are a pivot into something that the founder wanted. Not a random made up idea.
Sam Altman
44.
For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.
Sam Altman
45.
You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
Sam Altman
46.
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
47.
At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
Sam Altman
48.
You also really want to take the time to think about how the market is going to evolve.You need a market that's going to be big in 10 years.
Sam Altman
49.
One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
Sam Altman
50.
... 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
