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Sam Altman Quotes

Powerful Sam Altman for Daily Growth

Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list. Prefer a handful of truly close friends to a hundred acquaintances.

- Sam Altman

Other, Close Friends, Prefer, Handful

The only way to generate sustained exponential growth is to make whatever you're making sufficiently good.

- Sam Altman

Making, Only, Sufficiently, Exponential

Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I've spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.

- Sam Altman

Believe, Than, I Believe In, Regretted

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.

- Sam Altman

Think, Will, Trend, Critically

I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.

- Sam Altman

Regret, Turn, Led, Enough Money

AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.

- Sam Altman

Will, Likely, AI

Tech companies tend to do tech best.

- Sam Altman

Tech, Tend, Companies, Tech Companies

All throughout my life I have been deeply immersed in startups, either because I was running one or investing in them or helping them.

- Sam Altman

My Life, Been, Helping, Startups

Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas about themes. But really, we just fund the best startups.

- Sam Altman

Think, Big, Sometimes, Startups

It's so important for startups to get their culture right at the start. They need to feel unique and that they are on their own important mission in the world.

- Sam Altman

Start, Own, Need, Startups

Very ambitious startups often take a long time to work - or sometimes they take a very long time to look ambitious.

- Sam Altman

Long Time, Very, Take, Startups

I love working with really early stage startups where the outcome is still in doubt. Maybe they'll go on to greatness, or maybe they'll never get off the runway at all.

- Sam Altman

Love, Greatness, Still, Startups

Startups on the inside are always badly broken.

- Sam Altman

Broken, Always, Badly, Startups

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.

- Sam Altman

Tears, Other, I Think, Startups

I think extreme secrecy is a bad sign in all startups. Very few startups die because they tell you exactly how their technology works. On the long list of startup killers, that's pretty far down. Though on the list of entrepreneur fears, it's pretty high.

- Sam Altman

Die, I Think, Very, Startups

Loopt isn't a service that keeps you locked in, staring at your screen.

- Sam Altman

Service, Staring, Screen, Locked

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.

- Sam Altman

More, Always, Other, Constraint

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

- Sam Altman

Underestimate, How, Always, Recruit

Being a public company is really terrible for most companies. I'd say Facebook and Google have done a pretty good job of standing up to the incredible quarterly pressure to hit numbers, but most companies - and I've observed a lot now - don't do a very good job of that.

- Sam Altman

Good, Numbers, Very, Observed

Anonymity breeds meanness.

- Sam Altman

Breeds, Meanness, Anonymity

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.

- Sam Altman

Deal, Caught, Before, Roughly

Whoever Boost works with, Sprint will work with. And whoever Sprint works with, Verizon and AT&T will as well.

- Sam Altman

Will, Works, Whoever, Boost

If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy your own servers and hire someone to manage it. Now, that's unheard of.

- Sam Altman

Own, Hire, Buy, Manage

The crowd's a really powerful force on the Internet, and people finally understand how to harness that.

- Sam Altman

Powerful, Crowd, How, Powerful Force

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.

- Sam Altman

Look, Android, Large, Dissatisfied

That culture of frugality and discipline is really important for the Y Combinator mindset.

- Sam Altman

Culture, Mindset, Important, Frugality

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important.

- Sam Altman

Doing, Critical, Hundred, Everything Else

If you have a startup that's keeping it up at night because you think it's so great, then you should do that.

- Sam Altman

Night, Think, Keeping, Startup

For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.

- Sam Altman

Experience, Go, Very, Startup

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.

- Sam Altman

Bad, Compete, Idea, Startup

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