Sam Altman
Sam Altman
Samuel H. "Sam" Altmanis an American entrepreneur, programmer, venture capitalist and blogger. He is the president of Y Combinator and co-chairman of OpenAI...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
firsts scared starting
Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
team thinking firsts
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.
team might firsts
If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
team firsts facts
A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
team firsts employee
... 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...
team firsts referrals
Most great companies in tech have been built by personal referrals for the first...at least 100 employees and often many more.
team people firsts
Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.
thinking path firsts
You want to think about what is the path for my first 10 or 15 employees going to be as the company grows.
ideas firsts should
The idea should come first, the startup should come second.
people want firsts
... 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.
team firsts employee
... 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.
mission
It's so important for startups to get their culture right at the start. They need to feel unique and that they are on their own important mission in the world.
biggest experience
The biggest part of Loopt is about discovering the world around you, never replacing a social experience - only adding to it.
bad compete diagram famous good great ideas lie people secretly thus totally until
There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good.