Sam Altman Thinking Quotations

You also really want to take the time to think about how the market is going to evolve.You need a market that's going to be big in 10 years.

So it's worth some real up front time to think through the long term value and the defensibility of the business.

Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.

I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager.

Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.

I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.

... 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.

As you grow, the productivity I think, goes down with the square of the number of employees if you don't make an effort.

The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.

You want to think about what is the path for my first 10 or 15 employees going to be as the company grows.

You never want to be in a place where an employee has vested 3 out of the 4 years of stock and they start thinking about leaving.

You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.

If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.

Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.

Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.

If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.

Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.

If you're not in college and you don't know a cofounder, the next best thing I think is to go work at an interesting company.

You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.