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
calling mistake people small stupid understand
People always make the mistake of calling an idea small or stupid because they don't understand how it's going to evolve.
billion build companies dollar love people shortcut
The way to build billion dollar companies is to first build something people love. There isn't really a shortcut there.
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.
finally force harness people understand
The crowd's a really powerful force on the Internet, and people finally understand how to harness that.
heartache invest kinds people product recipe throw totally
I think the mistake people make most often when they invest in other kinds of startups is they say, 'This is totally different.' And so the things that matter, like making a product that people desperately want, like talking to customers, they throw this out the window. That is a recipe for heartache and tears.
ambitious believe critically future people trend whatever worth
I believe whatever smart, ambitious people are working on will be the trend of the future. I do think that it's worth thinking critically about what the future will be.
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.
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.
android iphone large people quite
If you look at people who have an iPhone or Android and are under 40 and are dissatisfied with their bank, it's actually quite a large market.
cool founders hire people seems
Many founders hire just because it seems like a cool thing to do, and people always ask how many employees you have.
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.
crazy lines sides
The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
time
The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
scale
The way to really scale a venture firm is with software.