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 responsibility credit
You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff.
ideas ambitious remember
Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
ideas perfect why-now
Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
ideas people want
You want an idea that not many other people are working on, and it's okay if it doesn't sound big at first.
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.
execution tricks
Unfortunately the trick to great execution is to say no a lot.
monopoly
You have to find a small market in which you can get a monopoly, and then quickly expand.
successful people focus
It's difficult to get large groups of people, to the extreme levels of focus and productivity that you need, for a startup to be successful.
ideas important needs
Someday, you need to build a business that's difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea.
world path needs
You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
team thinking employee
Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
team thinking giving
I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
team thinking bars
... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.
team answers should
... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.