August Weinbren

I don't know if it's possible to cultivate originality, but there are definitely ways to make the most of however much you have. For example, you're much more likely to have original ideas when you're working on something. Original ideas don't come from trying to have original ideas. They come from trying to build or understand something slightly t... See more

Similarly, if you're trying to build a powerful tool, make it gratuitously unrestrictive. A powerful tool almost by definition will be used in ways you didn't expect, so err on the side of eliminating restrictions, even if you don't know what the benefit will be.

But you never need to worry about that problem, because it's self-solving if you work on sufficiently ambitious projects. If you succeed at an ambitious project, you're not a nobody; you're the person who did it.

Don't try to work in a distinctive style. Just try to do the best job you can; you won't be able to help doing it in a distinctive way.

Dustin and JR built a tool to make it easier for teams to coordinate work. The result not only gave their teams clarity about what to do and why, but also time back to focus on the big ideas. Dustin and JR were inspired. Soon after, they founded Asana to spend their time building solutions to help more teams do the great work—without the busywork.

ave you ever wondered how a touch screen knows you are touching it? Well, it has these layers of transparent metal electrodes embedded in the display. When your finger gets close to the screen it causes a disturbance in the magnetic field that the electrodes sense.FIG_002Because the electrodes are laid out on a grid, they can report back the x and ... See more