Entrepreneurship Quotes by Sam Altman

Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.

— Sam Altman

More important than starting any startup, is getting to know a lot of potential co-founders.

— Sam Altman

A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.

— Sam Altman

Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

We hear again and again from founders, that they wish they had waited to start a startup until they came up with…

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

In the early days of a startup, people's compensation is whatever you negotiate with a founder and it's all over the place.

— Sam Altman

What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.

— Sam Altman

If you look at successful pivots, they almost always are a pivot into something that the founder wanted. Not a random made…

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

You have to be intense. This only comes from the CEO, this only comes from the founders.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

Every thing at a startup gets modeled after the founders. Whatever the founders do becomes the culture.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.

— Sam Altman

Losing focus is another way that founders get off track.

— Sam Altman

It takes years and years, usually a decade, to create a great startup.

— Sam Altman

So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

By the way, that's my number one piece of advice if you're going to join a startup: pick a rocket ship.

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman

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

— Sam Altman