August Weinbren

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.

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.

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

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.

So why is reading books any better than reading tweets or wall posts? Well, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, you need to put down your book, if only to think about what you’re reading, what you think about what you’re reading. But a book has two advantages over a tweet. First, the person who wrote it thought about it a lot more carefully. The book is... See more