Sam Altman Quotes - Page 6

Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster

If someone is choosing between joining McKinsey or your startup it's very unlikely they're going to work out at the startup.

The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

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

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

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.

In YC experience, 2 or 3 co-founders seems to be about perfect.

... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.

Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.

Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.

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.

It's become popular in recent years to say that the idea doesn't matter.

The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.

Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.

Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.

The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.

For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.

Employees will only add more value over time.

Or a way to stay on strangers couches, that just sounds terrible all around.

One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.

The tenth social network, and limited only to college students with no money, also terrible. Myspace had won.

One of the pieces of advice that we give at YC is: try to work together on a project rather than just doing an interview.

Experience matters for some roles and not others.

A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.

Press releases are easier to write than code, and that is still easier than making a great product.