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All Quotes by author - Sam Altman

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

" A lot of people don't love their bank. "

" Anonymity breeds meanness. "

" Companies generally work better when they are smaller. It's always worth spending time to think about the least amount of projects/work you can feasibly do, and then having as small a team as possible to do it. "

" Everyone is looking for the hack, the secret to success without hard work. "

" I believe in the future, and to be a good investor, you have to believe in the future. "

" I don't invest in companies where my mental model is that they need to get themselves acquired in the next few years - or ever. "

" I don't think people spend nearly enough time thinking about what they like and what they're good at. "

" If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control. "

" 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. "

" Intelligence is usually easy to tell in a 10-minute conversation. Determination is harder. "

" 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. "

" It's easy to say, 'I'm going to build something that already exists,' but it's difficult to clearly and succinctly describe something new. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley. Most people don't want Ferraris, they want a winning seed investment. "

" Set a clear, easy-to-understand vision for your company, and make it be a mission people believe in. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" The way to build billion dollar companies is to first build something people love. There isn't really a shortcut there. "

" The way to really scale a venture firm is with software. "

" Whether or not money can buy happiness, it can buy freedom, and that's a big deal. Also, lack of money is very stressful. "

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