Altman Quotes & Sayings

In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies. — Sam Altman

The best source by far for hiring is people that you already know and people that other employees in the company already know. — Sam Altman

The Loopt mobile app is all about giving you the latest local deals and insider tips. — Sam Altman

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer. — Sam Altman

Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it. — Robert Altman

The way you get deals done and the way you get good terms, is to have a competitive situation. — Sam Altman

Do you think we would become a better civilization if we all took acid? TR: Oh, absolutely. I think that LSD is the genie in the bottle of the world. — Mara Altman

You're saying no ninety-seven times out of a hundred, and most founders find they have to make a very conscious effort to do this. — Sam Altman

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end. — Robert Altman

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

The body knows things the thinking mind can only imagine. — Donald Altman

In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need. — Sam Altman

The best people know that they should join a rocketship. — Sam Altman

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

The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate. — Sam Altman

You want to continue to be run by great products, not process for it's own sake. — Sam Altman

Share results (financial and key metrics) with the company every month. — Sam Altman

You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right. — Sam Altman

The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed have had devastating effects on the U.S. economy and millions of American lives. But the U.S. economy will emerge from its trauma stronger and widely restructured. — Roger Altman

You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years. — Sam Altman

Losing focus is another way that founders get off track. — Sam Altman

Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before. — Sam Altman

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

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

There are a lot of anachronisms in Washington, but the need to periodically raise the debt limit by Congressional vote is certainly one of them. — Roger Altman

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

You can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar. — Sam Altman

(I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both. — Jonah Goldberg

Everyone is looking for the hack, the secret to success without hard work. — Sam Altman

Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be. — Sam Altman

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

One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed, and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm. — Sam Altman

I grew up with a computer, and many of my friends were people I met online. — Sam Altman

It's difficult to get large groups of people, to the extreme levels of focus and productivity that you need, for a startup to be successful. — Sam Altman

All the reasons that have made software so successful are beginning to happen with hardware. So much can be done so quickly, prototyped so rapidly, and the costs are so low. — Sam Altman

Facebook and Instagram are spiritual brothers. — Sam Altman

If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage. — Sam Altman

A lot of people don't love their bank. — Sam Altman

You only get points when you make something the market wants. So if you work really hard on the wrong things, no one will care. — Sam Altman

You can have a startup and one other thing, you can have a family, but you probably can't have many other hobbies. — Sam Altman

your second-hand bicycles in the alleyways — John Altman

Jazz has endured because it doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's a moment. — Robert Altman

If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it's almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated. — Sam Altman

To be alive is to totally and openly participate in the simplicity and elegance of here and now. — Don Altman

Diverse groups of countries can do a lot by trading amongst themselves, exploiting differences in costs, resources, and technologies. — Daniel Altman

We are united in the hope that every individual will someday enjoy at least the intellectual privileges we have had, if not always the material advantages. — Sidney Altman

I think Obamacare, for all its controversy, is actually working. — Roger Altman

People that are really smart and that can learn new things can almost always find a role in the company as time goes on. — Sam Altman

If you ever take your foot off the gas pedal, things will spiral out of control, snowball downwards. — Sam Altman

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

Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company? — Sam Altman

I don't often get involved with campaigns at all. — Sam Altman

The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time. — Sam Altman

The correlation of quality of life and cost of energy is huge. — Sam Altman

AirBnB happened because Brian Chesky couldn't pay his rent, but did have some space. — Sam Altman

As a so-called "civilized" people, and as members of a society in search of lasting peace in the world, we cannot remain callous to our responsibility toward nature and insensitive to the inherent rights of the animals. — Nathaniel Altman

[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is. — Robert Altman

Although other animals cannot reason nor speak the way humans do, this does not give us the right to do with them as we like. Even though our supposed possession of a soul and superior intelligence are used to create an arbitrary dividing line over rights, the fact remains that all animals have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, and in suffering they are our equals. — Nathaniel Altman

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

I believe in fighting with investors to reduce the amount of equity they get and then being as generous as you possibly can with employees. — Sam Altman

Check-ins are cool, but kind of a pain. — Sam Altman

And you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you; you know fires in a day. — Sam Altman

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

I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager. — Sam Altman

Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people. — Robert Altman

Don't let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do. — Sam Altman

A related advantage of mission oriented ideas, is that you yourself will be dedicated to them. — Sam Altman

The Jain religion in India teaches that because all life is essentially interrelated and interconnected, all living beings should be considered sacred and be respected. This belief forms the basis of the doctrine of ahimsa, which has been translated into English variously as "reverence for life," "nonviolence," and "dynamic compassion." — Nathaniel Altman

Virgin America flyers tend to be more likely to be using a mobile device and tapping social networks - even at 35,000 feet. — Sam Altman

If you're a chronic procrastinator, I would highly suggest you only focus on one thing. It's much better to finish the year achieving only one goal. Then to set three goals and achieve none because you procrastinated on all of them. — Alex Altman

A successful startup takes a very long time - certainly much longer than most founders think at the outset. You cannot treat it as an all-nighter. You have to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You have to spend time with your family and friends. You also need to work in an area you're actually passionate about - nothing else will sustain you for ten years. — Sam Altman

Why couldn't it have been done 2 years ago, and why will 2 years in the future be too late? — Sam Altman

I'd done "Gosford Park," a film that Julian Fellowes had written that Robert Altman directed. — Maggie Smith

As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company. — Sam Altman

Teddy: Sorry, Kaplan. You're stuck with me. Till death do us part.
Billy: Teddy Altman, did you just propose to me? — Allan Heinberg

You want an idea that not many other people are working on, and it's okay if it doesn't sound big at first. — Sam Altman

I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation ... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows. — Sam Altman

Robert Altman's 'Nashville' is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining. — Douglas Wood

Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes. — Robert Altman

The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company ... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever. — Sam Altman

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

Employees will only add more value over time. — Sam Altman

With Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling. — Vincent D'Onofrio

If you compromise and hire someone mediocre, you will always regret it. — Sam Altman

We live in an era where the global capital markets are the super power in the world, and when they move against you as they've moved against Russia, as we've all seen in the ruble, there's nothing that can stop that. — Roger Altman

Each small kindness given or received is evidence that life is worthwhile. — Donald Altman

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. — Sam Altman

Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage. — Sam Altman

Once your product is working, switch from not caring about this to caring about this a little bit. — Sam Altman

If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball. — Robert Altman

...greet the day gently and with utmost care. — Donald Altman

Both the Moral Majority, who are recycling medieval language to explain AIDS, and those ultra-leftists who attribute AIDS to some sort of conspiracy, have a clearly political analysis of the epidemic. But even if one attributes its cause to a microorganism rather than the wrath of God, or the workings of the CIA, it is clear that the way in which AIDS has been perceived, conceptualized, imagined, researched and financed makes this the most political of diseases. — Dennis Altman

Startups on the inside are always badly broken. — Sam Altman

Within a few months in 2008, household finances were crushed as asset values fell, millions of jobs were lost, countless credit cards were canceled, and thousands of homes were foreclosed on. — Roger Altman

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

If someone is difficult to talk to, if someone cannot communicate clearly, it's a real problem in terms of their likelihood to work out. — Sam Altman

Reasonable mergers generate substantial synergies, so that provides for earnings and cash-flow growth even if it doesn't provide for revenue growth, and I think that's a big driver. — Roger Altman

We pretty much won't fund a company now where the founders don't have vested equity because it's just that hard to do. — Sam Altman

No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people. — Sam Altman

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters. — Robert Altman