Top 200 Sam Altman Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 2 of 4

51. “It takes years and years, usually a decade, to create a great startup.”

— Sam Altman

52. “The best people know that they should join a rocketship.”

— Sam Altman

53. “Every first time founder waits too long, everyone hopes that an employee will turn around. But the right answer is to fire fast...”

— Sam Altman

54. “A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.”

— Sam Altman

55. “You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.”

— Sam Altman

56. “In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.”

— Sam Altman

57. “If you don’t love and believe in what you’re building, you’re likely to give up at some point along the way.”

— Sam Altman

58. “Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.”

— Sam Altman

59. “Developing a personal connection with anyone you’re trying to do a big deal with is really important.”

— Sam Altman

60. “If you look at successful pivots, they almost always are a pivot into something that the founder wanted. Not a random made up idea.”

— Sam Altman

61. “It’s better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it’s still bad to be a solo founder.”

— Sam Altman

62. “The tenth social network, and limited only to college students with no money, also terrible. Myspace had won.”

— Sam Altman

63. “In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.”

— Sam Altman

64. “Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don’t think about how the market is going to evolve.”

— Sam Altman

65. “Unfortunately the trick to great execution is to say no a lot.”

— Sam Altman

66. “Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they themselves excited about what they are doing, but they also get you excited.”

— Sam Altman

67. “One of the great and terrible things about starting a start up is that you get no credit for trying.”

— Sam Altman

68. “You want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can’t get a monopoly, in a big market right away; too much competition for that.”

— Sam Altman

69. “Even though plans themselves are worthless, the exercise of planning is very valuable and totally missing in most startups today.”

— Sam Altman

70. “You want an idea about what you can say. I know it sounds like a bad idea but here’s specifically why its actually a great one. You want to sound crazy but you want to ask to be right.”

— Sam Altman

71. “Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere.”

— Sam Altman

72. “Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that’s sort of just the sad reality.”

— Sam Altman

73. “We hear again and again from founders, that they wish they had waited to start a startup until they came up with an idea they really loved.”

— Sam Altman

74. “You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you’re not winning, you just have to get momentum back...”

— Sam Altman

75. “In the early days of a startup, people’s compensation is whatever you negotiate with a founder and it’s all over the place.”

— Sam Altman

76. “Employees will only add more value over time.”

— Sam Altman

77. “If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it’s hard to kill your babies.”

— Sam Altman

78. “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

79. “Every thing at a startup gets modeled after the founders. Whatever the founders do becomes the culture.”

— Sam Altman

80. “When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it’s easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.”

— Sam Altman

81. “1 of the hardest parts about being a founder, is that there are a 100 important things competing for your attention each day.”

— Sam Altman

82. “The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.”

— Sam Altman

83. “Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.”

— Sam Altman

84. “As you grow, the productivity I think, goes down with the square of the number of employees if you don’t make an effort.”

— Sam Altman

85. “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

86. “Here’s a good rule of thumb: don’t worry about a competitor at all, until they’re actually beating you with a real shipped product.”

— Sam Altman

87. “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

88. “To get the very best people- they have a lot of great options, and so it can easily take a year to recruit someone.”

— Sam Altman

89. “There’s no way I know, to get through the pain of a startup without belief that the mission really matters.”

— Sam Altman

90. “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

91. “Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.”

— Sam Altman

92. “Someday, you need to build a business that’s difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea.”

— Sam Altman

93. “You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.”

— Sam Altman

94. “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

95. “Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?”

— Sam Altman

96. “For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don’t let your ship date slip.”

— Sam Altman

97. “In general, it’s best if you’re building something that you yourself need.”

— Sam Altman

98. “Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.”

— Sam Altman

99. “If you’re not in college and you don’t know a cofounder, the next best thing I think is to go work at an interesting company.”

— Sam Altman

100. “If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.”

— Sam Altman