akos

Nothing is more powerful than a community of talented people working on related problems. Genes count for little by comparison: being a genetic Leonardo was not enough to compensate for having been born near Milan instead of Florence. Today we move around more, but great work still comes disproportionately from a few hotspots: the Bauhaus, the... See more

It takes confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to think,

there's more where that came from.

When people first start drawing, for example, they're often reluctant to redo parts that aren't right; they feel they've been lucky to get that far, and if they try to redo something, it will turn out worse. Instead they convince themselves that... See more

In writing it means: say what you mean and say it briefly.

Whatever job people do, they naturally want to do better. Football players like to win games. CEOs like to increase earnings. It's a matter of pride, and a real pleasure, to get better at your job. But if your job is to design things, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is

no way to get better at your job.

If taste is just personal... See more

The bottleneck for success and fulfilment and even personal growth probably doesn’t look like what we think it looks like. It probably looks more like finishing your projects. Or at least understanding why you don’t want to finish them. And if you’re avoiding something, there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to do it. You need to be in dialogue... See more

Failing because you took a series of actions that would inevitably produce failure is a surprisingly common feature of adult life.

Copying teaches technique and taste. It works for design and writing and many other disciplines.