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Customer Quotes by Sam Altman

55 Customer quotes by Sam Altman

All Customer quotes Sam Altman’s page

Sam Altman stresses that a startup’s fate hinges on the founders’ refusal to quit. He highlights the relentless speed needed to turn ideas into products and warns that a weak or missing co‑founder can stall the whole mission. Belief in the company’s purpose is portrayed as the only antidote to the inevitable pain.

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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.

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Momentum and growth are the lifeblood of startups. This is probably in the top three secrets of executing well.

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Growth and momentum are what a startup lives on and you always have to focus on maintaining these.

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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.

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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.

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You have to find a small market in which you can get a monopoly and then quickly expand.

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The idea should come first, the startup should come second.

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Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.

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Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody…

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The best founders work on things that seem small but they move really quickly. They get things done really quickly.

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You only get points when you make something the market wants. So if you work really hard on the wrong things, no…

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Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped…

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

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If someone is choosing between joining McKinsey or your startup it's very unlikely they're going to work out at the startup.

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We've seen a lot of data at YC now, and the most successful companies and the ones where the investors do the…

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You want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can't get a monopoly, in a big market right away; too…

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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.

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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.

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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.

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You want to continue to be run by great products, not process for it's own sake.

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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.

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Losing focus is another way that founders get off track.

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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.

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In YC experience, 2 or 3 co-founders seems to be about perfect.

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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.

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When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.

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You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.

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There are exceptions of course, but most companies start with a great idea - not a pivot.

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

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There's no way I know, to get through the pain of a startup without belief that the mission really matters.

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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.

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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

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It's better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it's still bad to be a solo founder.

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In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.

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

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Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.

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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.

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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.

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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.

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

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More by Sam Altman

The best people know that they should join a rocketship.

You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.

Employees will only add more value over time.

One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.

A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.

You're either not hiring at all or it's probably your single biggest block of time.

The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

Execution gets divided into two key questions: 1) can you figure out what to do and 2) can you get it done.

If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.

Most things are not as risky as they seem.

I prefer to invest in a company that's going after a small but rapidly growing market than a big but slow growing one.

Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.

One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.

One of the keys to focus, and why I said cofounders that aren't friends really struggle, is that you can't be focused without good…

Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.