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
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.
companies facebook good google hit incredible job observed public standing terrible
Being a public company is really terrible for most companies. I'd say Facebook and Google have done a pretty good job of standing up to the incredible quarterly pressure to hit numbers, but most companies - and I've observed a lot now - don't do a very good job of that.
believe future good
I believe in the future, and to be a good investor, you have to believe in the future.
behind computer good reduction screens
The reduction in compassion that happens when we're all behind computer screens is not good for the world.
generate good sustained
The only way to generate sustained exponential growth is to make whatever you're making sufficiently good.
capital easy either figure good money needs offering raise
Generally, you want to raise capital either when you have to or when it's really easy. If the company desperately needs money, and they can't figure out any other way, then they need to raise money. Or if someone's offering you easy money on good terms, you should take it because you can use it for good things.
good nearly people spend time
I don't think people spend nearly enough time thinking about what they like and what they're good at.
people be-good has-beens
These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
team winning feel-good
A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.
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.
cost life
The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge.
lose model money plenty
I have plenty of investments that I wish I'd never made. But the model is to lose money on a lot of investments and then make 1,000X or 10,000X on an investment.
early love maybe outcome runway stage
I love working with really early stage startups where the outcome is still in doubt. Maybe they'll go on to greatness, or maybe they'll never get off the runway at all.