Sam Altman on the #1 mistake great founders make

What are some of the things you see your best founders screw up frequently?

The number one mistake that great founders make, and everyone in this room that becomes a great founder is going to make this mistake. I'm just going to mention it. I think it's unavoidable. Is waiting too long to fire bad people. I don't actually think this is a teachable lesson. I think you just have to make the mistake and learn it. But it is the universal biggest mistake that otherwise really great founders make.

And why do you think it takes? Why does that happen?

I mean, firing people is like, the worst part of running a company. So it's just like, it sucks. Right? You made a mistake, and now you have to really negatively impact someone's life. So I'd actually worry if there was someone that had an easy time firing people.

Yeah. My reflection, I was slow to fire people in both contexts where I was CEO is that you start to say, well, this person's not succeeding, but maybe it's my fault. So maybe I made a bad call on the hire, but now it's my responsibility to fix it. And so maybe if I invest a little more, if I help him a little more, or maybe if I create a different context, you can fix it. I think that good founders tend to think they can fix things. People, issues like that are tough.

The one thing I've learned that may be helpful here is that you actually hurt the employee more by keeping them in a position for longer. If you fire someone two or three months in, they. They never put it on their resume. It's just like it's a null. That never happened. If they work there for like a year and don't excel and then you have to fire them, it hurts them more.

Yep. And they know, too, when they're not succeeding, they know it.