Lessons from Jack Altman

Jack Altman, co-founder of Lattice and founder of Alt Capital, has shared a wealth of knowledge on building companies, investing, and leadership through various interviews and writings.

On Startups and Building a Company

On the importance of product longevity: "If your product won't be used 10 years from now, you'll never build a lasting, valuable SaaS business." [1][2]
On finding product-market fit: "When you're on a first Zoom call with an HR leader... you're just barking up the wrong tree in general and you've wasted the last eight months of your life... you know and like that's actually what you kind of need to hear and only somebody who cares about you will tell you that." [3]
On the nature of innovation in startups: "49 times out of 50 or something like that, the most important innovation that any company needs to do is a better product and changing everything else is so hard and usually unnecessary." [4]
On the early stages of a company: "Joining a company as early as possible, right after achieving product-market fit, offers the greatest career advantage." [5]
On the difficulty of starting an "easy" company: In the current environment, it's easier to start a hard company than it is to start an easy company... Easy companies are boring." [6]
On the commitment required: "If you're going to start any company it's like a 10-year commitment." [6]
On the value of storytelling: "It's my view that like storytelling and narrative is the most powerful and ultimately cheapest way to cut through." [7]
On building an "all-weather business": "Reflecting on what we could have done better, one of the most important takeaways is the importance of building an all-weather business... it's critical that Lattice builds with efficiency and financial health more prominently in mind." [8]
On the reality of platform risk: "Platform risk is really real... so much of it happened on Facebook and you know goes real fast up and then if you've got a platform where your all your distribution is happening and they decide enough is enough then that's enough." [3][9]
On hiring in the early stages: "The best answer turns out to be finding the people who are in fact great but the world just doesn't realize it yet... you have to be willing to really dig deeper with people and see who's got you know this potential that hasn't been realized yet." [7]
On scaling a company: The point at which a company's structure needs to change is when layers of management are introduced. The first big shift is hiring the first managers, and the next is hiring executives. [4]
On the CEO's role in hiring: Hiring is the most important thing you do; spend at least a third of your time on it. [10]
On the importance of a clear mission: "Occasionally think about why the 20th person will join your company." [10]
On the value of speed: "Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies." [10]
On the challenges of hyper-growth: During the zero-interest-rate period, recruiting became unpleasant and transactional, which doesn't lead to good long-term decisions for either the company or the employee. [5]

On Leadership and Management

On hiring experienced executives: "One of the big hacks I think is once your company gets big enough that you get to hire these really awesome fancy experienced execs... you learn so much from them." [3][9]
On the benefits of being an agreeable founder: "Being a peacemaker, being a consensus builder, it does mean that you are able to build teams and companies that find happy ground and spend less time infighting." [7]
On communication: "Overcommunicate with your team. For some reason most founders are really bad at this one. Transparency is your friend." [10]
On creating a people-first culture: The inspiration for Lattice came from seeing employees who were disengaged and lacked clarity on their career growth because their feedback was not being heard. [11][12]
On stepping down as CEO of Lattice: "This change as a crucial step in Lattice's evolution, ensuring that great trust and careful planning preceded the decision." [13]
On the role of a leader: "My job now is to lead the company through a change in the way we operate, with a far more balanced approach to growth and efficiency." [8]
On making difficult decisions: When announcing layoffs at Lattice, he acknowledged the difficulty, especially as an HR software company with a mission to make work meaningful. [8]
On low-ego leadership: He has explored the concept of championing low-ego leadership in his interviews with other industry leaders. [14]
On the importance of a board: "What you're picking is somebody who's going to be there with you longer than most of your employees are going to be with you and you're going to talk to them about stuff that you're not going to talk to your employees about because you can't." [15]
On the different stages of management: He identifies distinct stages of company growth based on management layers, from direct management to hiring managers and then executives. [4]

On Investing and Venture Capital

On his long-term goal in venture capital: "If I had to say the one thing I'm optimizing for it's optimizing to be able to still do this when I'm 65 or 70." [3][9]
On learning from other founders: "I learned a ton from these seed-stage founders cuz tons of them are way better at a thing than I am you know and I could see that easily." [5]
On the role of a VC: He believes that there are many strategies that can work in venture capital, but you have to have one. [15]
On the nature of contrarian bets in venture: "The contrarian bet... is not that they believe this company is good and the rest of the market believes that it's bad, it's that they believe harder that it's good." [15]
On advice for new investors: When evaluating a company, if you can't assess product-market fit yourself, "find some people you trust and help them make that call for you." [5]
On the human element of investing: He emphasizes building genuine relationships with founders, which leads to more honest and valuable feedback. [3]
On his investing thesis: He looks for companies with products that have the potential to be used for at least a decade, indicating a focus on long-term value. [2]
On the value of being an angel investor as a founder: "You learn about other businesses you see what traits other founders have and maybe you can learn from that." [16]
On building a reputation in venture: A good reputation is built over long periods and can be lost very quickly. [16]
On investing your own money versus others': He acknowledges the different stresses involved when you move from being an angel investor to raising an institutional fund. [16]

On Personal Growth and Career

On finding your path: "The sooner you can answer the question of like what's the thing that you're better at than most people that you enjoy doing that has the ability to create value... the sooner you can like do good stuff." [3][9]
On playing the right game: "Only play a game you want to win and the second you realize you don't want to win a game you're playing just like get out of the game instantly." [3][9]
On the importance of taking risks early: "Being young and unknown and poor... is actually a great gift in terms of the amount of risk you can take." [17]
On being a "doer": "History belongs to the doers... take a risk actually do something don't just sit around and talk and organize." [17]
On work-life balance: "This is the one thing that's more important than my work is going to be family and I'm just going to abide by that." [16]
On learning by doing: "I think I learned mostly by doing through my career." [3][9]
On having a chip on his shoulder: He admits that early in his career, the success of his older brother, Sam Altman, was a motivating factor to prove himself. [16]
On the value of hard work early in your career: "Working hard early in your career to get the leverage and the compounding effects is underrated." [17]
On dealing with the "sunk cost" fallacy: "If you inspect the work you're doing all the time and you think about what's the best that can happen if this goes perfectly a lot of times you'll realize it's either not enjoyable or valuable and you should more things should be stopped than they are." [3][9]
On having other interests: "Part of my longevity with Lattice I think was actually having other interests that I was able to... scratch other itches." [16]

On the Future and Technology

On the impact of AI on jobs: "I do think that like there's a lot of jobs right now that look to me like they're going to structurally go away in favor of AI." [15]
On the future of AI: In an interview with his brother Sam Altman, they discussed the medium-term (5-10 years) impact of AI on various sectors. [18]
On AI replacing human interactions: "I'm skeptical of approaches where AI wants to replace human interactions." [11]
On the long-term vision for technology: He advocates for a longer time horizon in the tech ecosystem, believing that important achievements require long-term commitment. [6]
On the evolution of the startup ecosystem: He notes that it has become harder to hire early employees because many talented individuals now prefer to start their own companies. [6]

Learn more:

Lessons from Jack Altman

On Startups and Building a Company

On Leadership and Management

On Investing and Venture Capital

On Personal Growth and Career

On the Future and Technology

Written by Antoine Buteau

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