Sam Altman Quotes

AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.

We hired extremely slowly at the beginning. It took us a year to get to four people. It's hard to hire as a very small company, and we wanted to make sure we found people who cared a lot about what Stripe was doing.

HR should be every company's killer app. What could possibly be more important than who gets hired?

I always have an idea before we even start the movie because if you hire the wrong person, within a couple of days you're going to know that and you're going to be really panicked.

Actually, there is no more important task for a leader than to pick people. To make sure you have the very best people working for you.

As a business owner or manager, you know that hiring the wrong person is the most costly mistake you can make.

I've always been really internally focused. I tend to focus on hiring - ensuring that every person we hire is both a really good fit and really good - and also that everything we put out to our users is very high-quality.

Although most executives pay lip service to the idea of hiring for cultural fit, few have the courage or discipline to make it the primary criteria for bringing someone into the company.

As founder of Eventbrite, I've interviewed almost every single person we've hired.

One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.

... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.

Recruiting is a core competency for any company. It should never be outsourced.

If you have a choice between qualifications and personal qualities when it comes to hiring people, go with personal qualities. You can teach them the job.

If you don't hire at least one or two people that are smarter than you are, then you're a terrible manager and I don't need you.

Usually, you hire people that you think are wonderful.

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

... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.

Hiring great people is almost the most important thing you can do as a leader because they enable you to scale, and they create better leverage for you and your time.

The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people.

I think I have a good eye for talent. I think I'm smart enough to figure out what the mission is and achieve it. I achieve it by hiring good people.

No one could have brought in more personnel than we have to build a football team.

Startup success is driven most by the product passion, quality, vision, team-work and persistence of the founding team and the talent that the team attracts.

You win with people, not with talent. So the quality of the people is very important in building your team. I always looked for people with a solid value system. Then I recruited kids from a cross-section of different personalities, talents and styles of play.

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

When we hire someone, even if they are going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers.