If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control.
Sam AltmanRead
Starting a business is like riding a wave between life and death. If you can hang on long enough, you're bound to succeed
Interpretation
Starting a business is a risky endeavor that requires perseverance, but success will come to those who persist.
This quote emphasizes the precarious nature of entrepreneurship, likening it to riding a wave that can lead to either failure or success. The metaphor suggests that while the journey is fraught with potential dangers, those who are able to endure and maintain their grip amid the challenges are likely to achieve their goals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about entrepreneurship.
If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control.
It's so important for startups to get their culture right at the start. They need to feel unique and that they are on their own important mission in the world.
If you have the opportunity to go be an early employee at a company that's just going crazy, and you believe it's the next Facebook or Google, you should go join that company.
Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley. Most people don't want Ferraris, they want a winning seed investment.
People always make the mistake of calling an idea small or stupid because they don't understand how it's going to evolve.
Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'
If you're not working to get your business or investing operation to operate without you, you're thinking too small. Think team and systems.
It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.
The time to look for a new job is when you don't need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.
You set a goal to be the best and then you work hard every hour of every day, striving to reach that goal. If you allow yourself to settle for anything less than number one, you are cheating yourself.
Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.
The gift of achievement is _x000D_ not the things you get, but the person you become.
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