Sam Altman Quotes about Team - Page 3

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

In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.

... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.

... We probably funded a rate of something like one out of ten solo teams.

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

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.

A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.

You need unstoppable people. You want people that are just going to get it done.

You also want people who are maniacally determined and that is slightly different than having a risk tolerant attitude.

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

By the way, that's my number one piece of advice if you're going to join a startup: pick a rocket ship.

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

I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager.

Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.

If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.

People that are really smart and that can learn new things can almost always find a role in the company as time goes on.

You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.