Sam Altman Quotes

I'm well aware when they fired the starting gun I was halfway down the track, but I still ran as fast as I could for 25 years.

I was on one bus with my band and crew for seven years. I didn't come to town with a karaoke tape. I didn't get on a TV show. There were no shortcuts. Anybody who wants to follow my model is welcome to it. You don't want to follow my path.

Building a career or a company is about living a few years of your life like most people won't so that you can spend the rest of your life living at a level most people can't.

In summary, all great work is the fruit of patience and perseverance, combined with tenacious concentration on a subject over a period of months or years.

Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.

I really want people to know that I've worked hard, very hard, to get to where I am today.. this didn't just happen overnight. I started in business over 25 years ago and have found a way to build on what I've learned through every partnership and opportunity.

Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to passionate about it and love what you’re doing. If you don’t, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There’s no way you’re going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world.

Startups, in some sense, have gotten so easy to start that we are confusing two things. And what we are confusing, often, is, 'How far can you get in your first day of travel?' with, 'How long it is going to take to get up to the top of the mountain?'

It's hard to tell with these Internet startups if they're really interested in building companies or if they're just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don't really want to build a company, they won't luck into it. That's because it's so hard that if you don't have a passion, you'll give up.

The most important thing is to understand that this career is not about speed. It's about stamina. This is a marathon. It's not a 50-meter sprint. You have to persevere and understand it takes a lot of time. You have to know you're going to knock on 100 doors and 99 of them are going to close in your face.

You have to have a work ethic. It is always 24/7. It is a lot of sweat equity, and it is a little bit of Lady Luck.

The only way I know to be awesome at startups is to be obsessively focused and pegged to the floor of the deep end, gasping for air.

You have to show up when your show fails - or it succeeds. When you are enjoying the glory of success, you have to show up and still work hard because it may not last. You have to do your job with the same sincerity when you started and till you can actually do it with passion.

To really be conscious of how long the journey is, be patient, push yourself, persevere, and always be working on your craft while waiting for your break. That's what I'm still working on, having done this for 20 years now.

I work very hard; I have every day since I started my business, even when I was on bed rest during pregnancies, even when I was dealing with a cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Stardom can be obtained only after surviving and giving good films for almost 20 years.

I was told I had to go to business school to succeed. I gave it a shot, but eventually dropped out to bootstrap a restaurant with just a Visa card and a $20,000 line of credit. Everyone told me restaurants were hard work (and they were right! I have so much respect for anyone in the restaurant business). I ran the restaurant for two years, sold a franchise, decided to change paths, and sold the whole operation at a modest profit.

There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.

Still, I also know that most people, including me, tend to applaud the wrong things: the showy, dramatic record-setting sprint rather than the years of dogged preparation or the unwavering grace displayed during a string of losses. Applause, then, never bore much relation to the reality of my life as an astronaut, which was not all about, or even mostly about, flying around in space.

Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.

There's no luck in business. There's only drive, determination, and more drive.

Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

Be willing to work for nothing in things you think are stupid. Make work for yourself. Make your own luck. Don't complain. Hopefully, the work will find you if you are ready.

Plateau experiencing can be achieved, learned, earned by long hard work.... A transient glimpse is certainly possible in the peak experiences which may, after all, come sometimes to anyone. But, so to speak, to take up residence on the high plateau .... that is another matter altogether. That tends to be a lifelong effort.