Sam Altman Quotes

With respect to Committees as you would perceive I am very jealous of their formation. I mean working committees. I think business is always better done by few than by many.

We need to have fewer meetings, not more—as we have to have time to put into effect some of the things we decide in these meetings.

We don't have time as a nation to spend all of what we do blocking.

Startups need to focus on building a foundation for their company culture early, and then they need to revisit it often. Every time a hire is made, a feature is launched, a Facebook status is updated, a press interview is given, a round of financing is raised, or a meeting is held, culture should be part of the decision-making process.

I think one key part of doing more with less is to be more strategic, to realize what the objectives you're truly trying to accomplish are and then to drive with greater focus towards those objectives.

The bigger a company gets, the more people are involved in decisions, the slower decisions get made. Look, the whole theory of startups is that three motivated people can go and do something that every company can't.

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

Heavy lifting doesn't need to be heavy spending if we do the job right.

Make measurable progress in reasonable time.

The American attitude towards efficiency and execution should always underlie architecture.

Everything has to be well thought out - what do you really need, when can you do with less coverage.

In many respects, we really are trying to not run the Social Office like a business, but we do have a strategy. We do have a mission. We are trying to standardize certain things so that our time is not spent on, you know, picking flowers or linens, that we've got standards.

As we continue to grow, the question is, how do you keep the company as innovative as it was 15 employees ago?

There's smarter people than me. But you cannot have any one guy running 18 billion-dollar businesses. It just doesn't make sense to me. I've met some extraordinary leaders in my time. They struggle with running one billion-dollar business.

Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don't know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.

The time I save setting up and cleaning up probably balances out by the time I spend on output.

Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it.

In every business, in every industry, management does matter.

The key to Operations at Wal-Mart is their ability to maintain the highest standards while at the same time getting things done with lockstep execution.

Business requires understanding financial matters, but management is different from running the financial aspects of the business - it requires understanding complex systems, how they operate, the nature of organisations, what happens when people interact in groups and how to motivate and guide people.

Anything that is wasted effort represents wasted time. The best management of our time thus becomes linked inseparably with the best utilization of our efforts.

…the Army stood in need of talent as never before… the whole department is unscientifically managed, over officered and wastefully conducted.

If you ever hope to get ahead as an entrepreneur, the answer is not becoming an effective juggler, but in understanding and designing the systems to keep your team, not you, busy, busy, busy.

Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.

The obvious rule of efficiency is you don't want to spend more time organizing than it's worth.