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
team perfect founders
In YC experience, 2 or 3 co-founders seems to be about perfect.
boards members used
A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
team people source
The best source by far for hiring is people that you already know and people that other employees in the company already know.
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.
important needs figures
You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
attitude team people
You also want people who are maniacally determined and that is slightly different than having a risk tolerant attitude.
fire everyday knows
... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you; you know fires in a day.
team work-out joining
If someone is choosing between joining McKinsey or your startup it's very unlikely they're going to work out at the startup.
attitude team people
For early employees you want people that have somewhat of a risk-taking attitude.
real team work-out
If someone is difficult to talk to, if someone cannot communicate clearly, it's a real problem in terms of their likelihood to work out.
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.
team giving advice
One of the pieces of advice that we give at YC is: try to work together on a project rather than just doing an interview.
smart team people
There are 3 things I look for when I hire people. Are they smart? Do they get things done? Do I want to spend a lot of time around them?
team done made
Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.