Sam Altman Quotes
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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.
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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.
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People hate searching.
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If the Reddit community cannot learn to balance authenticity and compassion, it may be a great website, but it will never be a truly great community.
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All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people.
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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.
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Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
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The way to really scale a venture firm is with software.
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Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list. Prefer a handful of truly close friends to a hundred acquaintances.
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One of the things we urge Y-Combinator companies to do is to have profitability in grasp. If you need to get profitable before your A round of money, you ought to be able to do that.
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Whoever Boost works with, Sprint will work with. And whoever Sprint works with, Verizon and AT&T will as well.
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Location is the sole difference between mobile and traditional Web.
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The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge.
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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.
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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.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large competitors.
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The nice thing about Reddit is, we don't have to sell your data or build a profile of you or do stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable.
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Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas about themes. But really, we just fund the best startups.
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If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control.
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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.
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Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'
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The biggest part of Loopt is about discovering the world around you, never replacing a social experience - only adding to it.
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Generally, you want to raise capital either when you have to or when it's really easy. If the company desperately needs money, and they can't figure out any other way, then they need to raise money. Or if someone's offering you easy money on good terms, you should take it because you can use it for good things.
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Ideas are cheap and easy, and there are a lot of them.