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
deeply either immersed life running throughout
All throughout my life I have been deeply immersed in startups, either because I was running one or investing in them or helping them.
business critical figuring five hard hundred ignoring matters rest running
The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important.
running team thinking
Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
running want sake
You want to continue to be run by great products, not process for it's own sake.
consumers tap
With Loopt Star, consumers get to tap interactive rewards wherever they may be.
time
The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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.
cool fund
The thing about Y Combinator that's cool is that most companies won't happen if we don't fund them.
case jobs technology time
Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'
best fund people
Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas about themes. But really, we just fund the best startups.
investing people silicon status symbol
Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley. Most people don't want Ferraris, they want a winning seed investment.
across available communication major service services since succeed wireless
Communication services need interoperability to succeed - and Loopt is the first such service since SMS that is available across all major U.S. wireless carriers.
team goal should
Later, you should learn to hire fast and scale up the company, but in the early days the goal should be not to hire. Not to hire.
team cost
The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.