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
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.
light money ok spend
What is OK is to spend money for productivity. What is not OK is just to light money on fire.
call current failure learned led money regret start turn
I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.
believe causes fun money personally regretted saving spending spent though time travel
Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I've spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.
companies money ought profitable round urge
One of the things we urge Y-Combinator companies to do is to have profitability in grasp. If you need to get profitable before your A round of money, you ought to be able to do that.
buy freedom happiness lack money whether
Whether or not money can buy happiness, it can buy freedom, and that's a big deal. Also, lack of money is very stressful.
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.
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.
cost life
The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge.
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.
family handful hundred low prefer priority
Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list. Prefer a handful of truly close friends to a hundred acquaintances.
consumers tap
With Loopt Star, consumers get to tap interactive rewards wherever they may be.