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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.
Sam Altman
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People always make the mistake of calling an idea small or stupid because they don't understand how it's going to evolve.
Sam Altman
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That culture of frugality and discipline is really important for the Y Combinator mindset.
Sam Altman
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Whoever Boost works with, Sprint will work with. And whoever Sprint works with, Verizon and AT&T will as well.
Sam Altman
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large competitors.
Sam Altman
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The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge.
Sam Altman
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People appreciate when you make an effort to speak their language.
Sam Altman
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Ideas are cheap and easy, and there are a lot of them.
Sam Altman
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There is a lot of stuff I like. I love backpacking. I love going to an island where I can just sit on the beach and read or scuba dive and sail. I do a lot of that. I still go backpacking around Europe in the summers and staying in hostels. I love that.
Sam Altman
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Traditional local advertising is not what retailers want. They want not just for you to see an ad - they want you to come into the store, to be a repeat customer and to spread the word.
Sam Altman
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I think that inexpensive sources of planet-friendly energy are one of the most important things for us to pursue.
Sam Altman
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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
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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.
Sam Altman
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I believe that sexism in tech is a real problem.
Sam Altman
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AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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I think you can say a lot of evil behavior by companies is short-term optimization.
Sam Altman
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Maybe I am a bit unusual here, but I am less stressed if I have my phone with me. Because I can spend like an hour in the morning taking care of everything instead of I sit there and wonder what I missed or wonder what's happening. So it's way less stressful for me to just answer my phone.
Sam Altman
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Do I think every culture will embrace location technology? Yes.
Sam Altman
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Set a clear, easy-to-understand vision for your company, and make it be a mission people believe in.
Sam Altman
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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.
Sam Altman
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I have plenty of investments that I wish I'd never made. But the model is to lose money on a lot of investments and then make 1,000X or 10,000X on an investment.
Sam Altman
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Intelligence is usually easy to tell in a 10-minute conversation. Determination is harder.
Sam Altman
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What is OK is to spend money for productivity. What is not OK is just to light money on fire.
Sam Altman
