LooptのFounder、Sam Altmanの名言を引用メモ。
-Get ready for high highs and low lows, and practice keeping yourself in the middle or you’ll never get good work done. You’re going to be pretty sure your company is dying at least once a month, and it usually isn’t. This is very important and very difficult to learn.
-Focus on the product, especially in the early days. You’ll have time to make deals later. Now, you’ve got to build something great.
-If you hire, do it very slowly and carefully. The culture of a company is set very early, and so is the quality of the team.
-Don’t be afraid to change your idea if the market seems bad. Early is a good time to do it. You can change your product, you can change your team, you can change your sales strategy, but you can probably not create a market. Good startups surf someone else’s wave.
-Figure out what the important things are, and spend lots time on those and little on the rest. Lots of startups work very hard, but on the wrong things. They still die an untimely death.
-Watch out for fights and brewing tension among cofounders (ie, make sure everyone feels they have a reasonably fair deal). I’ve seen this derail more early startups than anything else. And, if you are really sure you have the wrong cofounder, fire fast.
-The startups in my Y Combinator ‘class’ that tanked the fastest were the ones that spent the most time worrying about option grants for members of their board of advisors and the least time on their product. Could be a coincidence, but why risk it? Build your product.
-Great products, technology, and people win the day in the long run. History backs this up. Do not be afraid of competitors without them, no matter how much money they raise or how much noise they make.
-It’s most tempting to give up right before you’re about to succeed.
Best of luck, Sam Altman
-（More advice for new Y Combinator foundersより）
現実歪曲フィールドとは
Steve Jobsがもっている現実を歪ませるほどのカリスマ的影響力のことを指して言われるが、GreplinのDaniel Gross曰く、Sam Altmanにも同様の現実歪曲フィールドがあるという。(Daniel GrossはPaul Grahamにもあると言っている）※「Startups Open Sourced」より
またSam Altmanは、Paul Grahamにここ30年で最も惹かれるFounder五人のうちの一人だと称されている。
According to Paul Graham, Loopt’s Sam Altman is one of the five most interesting founders of the last three decades. There’s a simple reason for it: he really knows what he’s doing.
StripeのFounder、Patrick Collisonも、Stripeのアーリー期にSam Altmanのアドバイスにどれほど助けられたかについてコメントしている。(Sam AltmanはStripeに初期から投資している）
His advice has consistently been clear, useful, and correct. He’s also gone way beyond the call of duty in helping us on a number of occasions.
Though this is only tangentially related to the story, I’ll take the chance to say: if you ever happen to have the chance to have Sam invest in your company, I strongly recommend availing of it.
Sam Altmanのその他の素晴らしい名言はHacker News上のコメントで。
