Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

you should have a goal. You should know where you want to go, who you want to work with, what you want to learn, who you want to become.

The best way to find a job you’ll love and a career that will eventually make you successful is to follow what you’re naturally interested in, then take risks when choosing where to work. Follow your curiosity rather than a business school playbook about how to make money. Assume that for much of your twenties your choices will not work out and the

In those very, very early days you want people who are there for the mission above all. You’re looking for passion, enthusiasm, and mindset. And you’re looking for seed crystals. Seed crystals are people who are so good and so well loved that they can almost single-handedly build large parts of your org.

“What do I want to learn?”

1. Data: You’ll be able to track how customers use your current product and test new versions. You can confirm or disprove hunches with hard data from actual paying customers. This data will allow you to fix the stuff you screwed up when you were just following your gut.

And it’s not because we didn’t think of it. We dreamed about various iTunes features while we were building the iPod. But we didn’t have time to execute it and we’d already disrupted enough. We needed to get people from CDs to MP3s—that was a big leap already.

Design thinking forces you to really understand the problem you’re trying to solve. In this case, the problem isn’t “I need a car to get to work.” It’s actually much broader: “How do I want to get around?” The product you’re designing is a mobility strategy for your life.

“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than to produce

When you’re a manager, you’re no longer just responsible for the work. You’re responsible for human beings.