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.

Infographic for "Lessons from Jack Altman".

On Startups and Building a Company

On the importance of product longevity: Jack said "unless you've got a thing that people are going to use 10 years from now, you're never going to build an enduringly valuable" SaaS company. — Video: Building Lattice & Alt Capital, Jack Altman on investing and operating.
On getting hard truths from customers: Jack said most people don't want to tell a founder they are "barking up the wrong tree in general and you've wasted the last eight months of your life," but "that's actually what you kind of need to hear and only somebody who cares about you will tell you that." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
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." Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam
On the early stages of a company: Jack said when advising a friend, "joining a company as early as possible post clear product market fit is the highest career benefit usually." — Video: Building Lattice & Alt Capital, Jack Altman on investing and operating.
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 wartime: Recalling the period when Lattice could not raise its Series B, Jack said "we weren't hiring," "we called it wartime," and the team thought of "each hire we make as a failure." — Video: Building Lattice & Alt Capital, Jack Altman on investing and operating
On the reality of platform risk: Jack said "platform risk is really real" was the learning: "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." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
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 competing for early hires: Jack said "there's always a bigger fish and somebody else can always pay more," and "when you're just getting started every fish is a bigger fish." — Video: The Unspoken Truths of Leading a Hyper-Growth Start-Up, with Lattice's Jack Altman
On scaling a company: Jack said "what it really comes down to is layers of management": "the moment when you hire your first management," and later "you hire first execs and each time you do that the way that communications works is different." — Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam.
On the challenges of hyper-growth: Looking back at 2021, Jack said "I found recruiting unpleasant because instead of getting to know somebody in an authentic way over multiple weeks and then making a considered decision together," candidates would say they had nine offers, and "it doesn't lead to great decisions." — Video: Building Lattice & Alt Capital, Jack Altman on investing and operating.
On the easy money of 2021: Jack said of 2021 that "so much of the realness in that year was lost," because "budgets were like infinite and you could just sell anything. You get sloppy." — Video: Building Lattice & Alt Capital, Jack Altman on investing and operating

On Leadership and Management

On hiring experienced executives: Jack said "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 and it happens to be that you're the manager but you learn so much from them." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
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 expectations: Jack said "people rise to the expectations you hold for them," and that if you believe people need coddling, "people will match that." — Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam
On reference checks: Jack said "I've never had the false positive of unbelievable references from like 10 plus people and then it didn't work out." — Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam
On overwork: Jack, who logged 110-hour weeks in banking, said "I'm not sure that you're making your best decisions the Friday morning of an 80 hour work week" when "sleeping five hours a night." — Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam
On upside creation and downside protection: Jack described a Keith Rabois idea: "there are some roles where what you're looking for is people who are going to basically just create infinite upside," while other roles exist to limit the downside. — Video: The Logan Bartlett Show EP 80, Jack Altman on founding Lattice, motivating employees and growing up with Sam
On creating a people-first culture: The episode notes quote Jack on the idea behind Lattice: "We just experienced these pains of people feeling unsatisfied, they didn't necessarily feel like there were easy opportunities to be listened to by the company." — Crafted: Putting People First, How Jack Altman Built Lattice Into an Employee Performance Powerhouse.
On stepping down as CEO of Lattice: In the post announcing the change, Jack wrote "This is an important next step in Lattice's journey and one that comes as the result of long consideration and careful planning." — Jack Altman, The Next Chapter (Lattice blog, December 2023).
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 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 Investing and Venture Capital

On his long-term goal in venture capital: Jack said "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." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
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: Jack said "you have to have a strategy but there's many strategies that can work." — Video: How Jack Altman Hit 100x Growth, Uncapped, AI, VC, Founders.
On the nature of contrarian bets in venture: Jack said "the contrarian bet, let's say, for them 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." — Video: How Jack Altman Hit 100x Growth, Uncapped, AI, VC, Founders.
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 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 founders and the factory: Jack said "I don't think startups and founders are meant to be widgets on a factory line," and "venture capital should be practiced as a craft not like a bank." — Video: From VC-backed Founder to Angel to Institutional Investor with Jack Altman

On Personal Growth and Career

On finding your path: Jack said "what's the thing that you're better at than most people that you enjoy doing that has the ability to create value" is the question to answer: "the sooner you can answer that question with confidence and clarity, the sooner you can like do good stuff." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
On playing the right game: Jack said "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." — Video: Jack Altman, The Raw Stories Behind Billions.
On work-life balance: Jack said "this is the one thing that's more important than my work is gonna be family and I'm just gonna abide by that." — Video: From VC-backed Founder to Angel to Institutional Investor with Jack Altman.
On learning by doing: Looking back on his career, Jack said "I think I learned mostly by doing through my career." — Video: Jack Altman, Investment Banking to Billion Dollar Startup.
On having a chip on his shoulder: Jack said "there was a point in my career where it was like a chip on my shoulder driver for me," because "I was 26 when I started Lattice and even then, you know, he had done YC," his brother Sam, and "I gotta prove myself too." — Video: From VC-backed Founder to Angel to Institutional Investor with Jack Altman.
On inspecting the work you are doing: Jack said "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 realize it's either not enjoyable or valuable." — Video: Jack Altman, Investment Banking to Billion Dollar Startup.
On having other interests: Jack said "part of my longevity with Lattice, I think, was actually having other interests" and "the ability to scratch other interest itches was a big part of what helped me stay" focused on the company. — Video: From VC-backed Founder to Angel to Institutional Investor with Jack Altman.

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 starting a podcast: Jack said of starting his podcast "it's like a good excuse to meet interesting people." — Video: How Jack Altman Hit 100x Growth, Uncapped, AI, VC, Founders

Learn more:

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

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