Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

To do good work you have to take these cycles into account, because they’re affected by how you react to them. When you’re driving a car with a manual transmission on a hill, you have to back off the clutch sometimes to avoid stalling. Backing off can likewise prevent ambition from stalling.

The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.

Today’s experimental error is tomorrow’s new theory. If you want to discover great new things, then instead of turning a blind eye to the places where conventional wisdom and truth don’t quite meet, you should pay particular attention to them.

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot. The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And

Wealth is what people want, and if people aren’t using your software, maybe it’s not just because you’re bad at marketing.

Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them.

We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest.

It turns out that looking at things from other people’s point of view is practically the secret of success.

should be “i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto.” Closed thoughts and an open face. Smile at everyone, and don’t tell

whole company moving in one direction or another.