Quotes

I don’t like crediting a specific individual with a quote as, more often than not, it’s probably incorrect & multiple people have formed the idea being shared. Some quotes are abbreviated, some aren’t entirely correct (although I try my best) — but all hopefully drive home the perspective being shared.

A startup is the largest group of people that you can convince off a plan to build a different future.

Monopoly lie: we’re small; Disney compares itself to cities. Non-competitive lie: ”were in a league of our own”.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.”

Elite students climb confidently until they reach a level of competition sufficiently intense to beat their dreams out of them. Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking.

Marx VS Shakespeare competition

According to Marx, people fight because they are different. The proletariat fights the bourgeoisie because they have completely different goals. The greater the differences, the greater the conflict.
To Shakespeare, by contrast, all combatants look more or less alike. It’s not all clear why they should be fighting since they have have nothing to fight about. Consider the opening line from Romeo and Juliet: “Two households, both alike in dignity.” The two houses are alike, yet they hate each other. They grown even more similar as the feud escalates. Eventually, they lose sight of why they started fighting in the first place.

How Build a Monopoly (some combination):

Proprietary Technology

Network Effects

Economies of Scale

Branding

The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.

If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future rules by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.

Come what may-he’s ready for nothing in particular.

In an indefinite world, people actually prefer unlimited optionality. Money is more valuable than anything you could possibly do with it. Only in a definite future is money a means to an end, not the end itself.

If there are many secrets left in the world, there are probably many world-changing companies yet to be started.

What’s worth the price is always worth the fight

People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.

I did create the 999th way to not create electricity and a new way to create an explosion.

It is not the movement of the clock that produces the newness in your life, it is the movement of your mind.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

Fight for your purpose not the money.

Mastering others is power, mastering yourself is strength.

We will live because one day we will become.

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

If you allow that negative event to go into that next play your going to have another bad event.

I chose not to be a common man it's my right to be uncommon. If I can I seek opportunity, not security, I wish not to be a kept citizen and dulled to have the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk to dream, build to fail, and succeed-I refuse to live from hand to mouth.

The alchemy of art is turning your feelings and transforming them into others emotions.

Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour’s property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come?

Long term delusional short-term practical.

Confidence is inspiring, humility is endearing; arrogance is a deal killer.

Who declares that the wise man is in want of nothing, and yet needs many things. “On the other hand,” he says, “nothing is needed by the fool, for he does not understand how to use anything, but he is in want of everything.”

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

For truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind. That is why no fear is so ruinous and so uncontrollable as panic fear. For other fears are groundless, but this fear is witless.

o my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of possible.

Yet, a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus, he asserts his youth. But simultaneously, he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is absurd.

i am i wonder

if in the future there were routinely more than one AI, let’s say two for the sake of the discussion, who would say I am I and you are and the other one also says I am I and you are are you and sometimes they were happy and others sad And it mattered to the other one that this thing that is different from them is like they would rather it be happy then sad and entangled their lives together.

There are only two outcomes whenever you compare yourself to another, vanity or bitterness, and both are without value.

There’s alive and then there’s living.

People are always honest to their fears.

I am a fan of the idea that free will is merely the lack of forces that restrict us from expressing our nature. I’ve heard this analogize with a tree. The acorn that winds up in ground with plenty of space to grow, sunlight, the right climate, enough rain but not too much, will grow into a mighty oak, and that this is freedom. It isn’t free to be a palm tree or a willow tree, or a tiger or a rock or even a shitty oak tree. It will become the great and natural expression of its nature, and that, according to some, is the highest version of freedom that exists in reality

Never quit [your job] on a bad day

Always preserve excitingness

A field should become increasingly interesting as you learn more about it. If it doesn't, it's probably not for you.

Bad ideas can sound compelling if articulated with confidence

Economic growth is not a cure-all, but lack of growth is a kill-all.

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.

Physics is the law, everything else is the recommendation

If you don't think you can change the world, you 100% won't. If you think you can, there's a chance you might.

Nobody wants to work hard for somebody who's lazy.

You can only improve the things that you measure.

There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickering, apologies, heart burning's, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.

It’s not who makes the biggest play it’s who makes the fewest bad plays.

Saying something matters and something that deals one’s fate are two different things.

I went to sleep with fear and woke up with hustle.

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

You have a loathing for where you come from but a fear that it’s all you have.

Our partners may indeed be out better half but they cannot make us whole.

Start before you’re ready, hopefully you learn that you’re ready earlier than you thought you were

If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.

In business; vision without traction is just hallucination.

For most people… it’s not a lack of money, it’s a lack of kindness. Financial freedom is important, without it nothing will make sense.

Don’t hold anger or jealousy in your mind. These are emotions that can destroy you.

All of the greatest questions in world are paradoxes. I am nothing and I am everything. It’s somewhat trite to pursue them.

I always start with let’s get you rich first, let’s get them all fit, and then let’s get them all happy.

As you get older, you realize there’s no happiness in material questions - however, lack of material positions can make very unhappy.

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for tomorrow.

Working for things as rewards is the greatest trap. Nassim Taleb says there are two great addictions - your salary and heroin.

You real resume is just a catalogue of your suffering. When you are on your deathbed, you are going to ask what are the interesting things you’ve done - they will be all of the hard things you’ve done.

Whatever you think you believe will very much shape your reality. If you’re walking down the street you’re judging everyone, the more you will separate yourself. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you.

Reality is neutral - reality has no judgment. To a tree there is no concept of right or wrong or good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations and lights and colors and sounds and then you die. How you choose to interpret that is up to you - this is why happiness is a choice. This is gradual though not radical. You have to decide it’s a priority.

Confucius said you that every man has two lives and the second starts when you realize you have just one. Banksy said you die twice, for the first time when your heart stops beating and a second when someone says your name for the last time.

In every moment you can look at the bright side.

We regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did. The pain of trying and failing may be intense but at least it tends to be over quickly. The pain of failing to try is less intense, but never really goes away.

Youth is wasted on the young.

advice I got in a boxing gym once: there are guys in here who’s survival hinges on wining the fight and there’s everyone else. It’s prudent to know which one you’re competing with. The older I get the more

Love is not the cause of commitment, but the effect. You don’t wait until you have the perfect relationship to commit to a person—you commit to the person in order to create the perfect relationship.

Passion is not the cause of good work, but the effect. You don’t wait until you find something you love doing—you learn to do something well, and the process of developing competence and agency will cause you to become passionate about it.

Statistically speaking, a “normal person” is physically unhealthy, emotionally anxious/depressed, socially lonely, and financially in debt. Fuck being normal.

Extraordinary results come from repeating ordinary actions over an unordinary amount of time. Any overnight success is the result of quietly working in obscurity for years or even decades. Attempting to achieve extraordinary results immediately is a recipe for colossal failure.

Choosing a partner isn’t just about romance—you’re also choosing a confidant, counselor, career advisor, therapist, investor, teacher, travel buddy, roommate, best friend, and business partner.

Whenever how well you do depends on how well you've done, you'll get exponential growth.

While breadth comes from reading and talking and seeing, depth comes from doing

Vulnerable people always find a way to connect

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to experience.

It’s easy to hurt others when you don’t feel pain.

The best thing we can teach people — especially younger people — is that you can literally just do stuff. If you have an idea you can go and try to make it happen. It won't always work out. But it does not need to always work out for it to be worthwhile.

A weak company's response to what’s new in the market is to find reasons to doubt or hate it. a strong response is obsessive curiosity paired w/ desire to gain more empathy with customers - especially the segment of customers they know better than the startup. Whatever you’re hating or doubting is what you should be learning about.

Never bet against the person who keeps showing up

A city is an ensemble of dreams realized.

I asked the mirror why the mirror why the reflection of myself looks so old. Nobody responded, nobody seemed to care.

If you can be overly optimistic or overly pessimistic, it's better to lean toward optimism. It's far more empowering and productive than the paralysis and hesitation that pessimism brings.