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
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.
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.
almost ask crushing founder great totally
If you ask a founder how their company is doing, they always say, 'Oh it's great. We're totally crushing it,' and that's almost never true.
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.
whoever work works
Whoever Boost works with, Sprint will work with. And whoever Sprint works with, Verizon and AT&T will as well.
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.
location sole
Location is the sole difference between mobile and traditional Web.
advertising local retailers spread
Traditional local advertising is not what retailers want. They want not just for you to see an ad - they want you to come into the store, to be a repeat customer and to spread the word.
business companies point technology
The point of an accelerator is to teach you about companies and business, not about technology.
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.
company founder investors
If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control.
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.
caught complex email few head leave meetings office review roughly schedule top work
I get up late, have an espresso, and immediately start work. I try to get roughly caught up on email before I leave the house, then if I need to write anything or review a complex deal, I do that, and then I head to the office and work on my top few priorities for the day. I try to schedule my meetings in the afternoon.
billion companies difficult fund job partners worth
I always tell my partners that our job is to fund all the companies we can that can be worth $10 billion or more. That's such a difficult constraint, we can't have any other constraints.