Sam Altman

Background updating is absolutely the future.

Loopt isn't a service that keeps you locked in, staring at your screen.

I suppose if I didn't have Loopt, I'd have to, I don't know, pick up the phone and just start calling people, a lot more texting and certainly more Googling.

Asking what I'd do without Loopt is almost like asking what I would do if I didn't have a smartphone because the feature set has become the norm for me.

Startups on the inside are always badly broken.

If you ask a founder how their company is doing, they always say, 'Oh it's great. We're totally crushing it,' and that's almost never true.

I love working with really early stage startups where the outcome is still in doubt. Maybe they'll go on to greatness, or maybe they'll never get off the runway at all.

Generally, you want to raise capital either when you have to or when it's really easy. If the company desperately needs money, and they can't figure out any other way, then they need to raise money. Or if someone's offering you easy money on good terms, you should take it because you can use it for good things.

Very ambitious startups often take a long time to work - or sometimes they take a very long time to look ambitious.

Whoever Boost works with, Sprint will work with. And whoever Sprint works with, Verizon and AT&T will as well.

Many of the companies in the mobile location space are trying to figure out different ways to tie what they're doing to commerce.

The way to really scale a venture firm is with software.

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.

The biggest part of Loopt is about discovering the world around you, never replacing a social experience - only adding to it.

Location is the sole difference between mobile and traditional Web.

The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.

That culture of frugality and discipline is really important for the Y Combinator mindset.

One of the things we urge Y-Combinator companies to do is to have profitability in grasp. If you need to get profitable before your A round of money, you ought to be able to do that.

With Loopt Star, consumers get to tap interactive rewards wherever they may be.

Facebook and Instagram are spiritual brothers.

Tech companies tend to do tech best.

People hate searching.

Check-ins are cool, but kind of a pain.

Do I think every culture will embrace location technology? Yes.

Communication services need interoperability to succeed - and Loopt is the first such service since SMS that is available across all major U.S. wireless carriers.

Many founders hire just because it seems like a cool thing to do, and people always ask how many employees you have.

There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good.

I think the mistake people make most often when they invest in other kinds of startups is they say, 'This is totally different.' And so the things that matter, like making a product that people desperately want, like talking to customers, they throw this out the window. That is a recipe for heartache and tears.

The thing about Y Combinator that's cool is that most companies won't happen if we don't fund them.

Loopt wouldn't have happened without Y Combinator.

I get up late, have an espresso, and immediately start work. I try to get roughly caught up on email before I leave the house, then if I need to write anything or review a complex deal, I do that, and then I head to the office and work on my top few priorities for the day. I try to schedule my meetings in the afternoon.

Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.

Maybe I am a bit unusual here, but I am less stressed if I have my phone with me. Because I can spend like an hour in the morning taking care of everything instead of I sit there and wonder what I missed or wonder what's happening. So it's way less stressful for me to just answer my phone.

There is a lot of stuff I like. I love backpacking. I love going to an island where I can just sit on the beach and read or scuba dive and sail. I do a lot of that. I still go backpacking around Europe in the summers and staying in hostels. I love that.

I have plenty of investments that I wish I'd never made. But the model is to lose money on a lot of investments and then make 1,000X or 10,000X on an investment.

All the reasons that have made software so successful are beginning to happen with hardware. So much can be done so quickly, prototyped so rapidly, and the costs are so low.

The point of an accelerator is to teach you about companies and business, not about technology.

What is OK is to spend money for productivity. What is not OK is just to light money on fire.

Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas about themes. But really, we just fund the best startups.

I think that inexpensive sources of planet-friendly energy are one of the most important things for us to pursue.

People are incredible creatures of habit.

There is a long history of founders returning to companies and doing great things. Founders are able to set the vision for their companies with an authority no one else can.

I don't often get involved with campaigns at all.

If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy your own servers and hire someone to manage it. Now, that's unheard of.

The whole concept of rewarding customers is a big trend.

The market for local advertising is in the billions.

Traditional local advertising is not what retailers want. They want not just for you to see an ad - they want you to come into the store, to be a repeat customer and to spread the word.

Anonymity breeds meanness.

The nice thing about Reddit is, we don't have to sell your data or build a profile of you or do stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable.

If you go to a paintball subreddit, paintball companies can advertise to you.