highly concentrated effort

A realization I’ve had lately: practically anything that’s great in the world is that way only through constant attention and care—e.g. great products, yards, marriages, companies, friendships. If left alone, practically everything defaults toward mediocrity at best or ruin at worst. “Constant attention and care” always requires time and this is a ... See more

Growing up, we only gradually came to realize that things around us weren’t just always there. Actual people, with concrete visions, working for a long time, made them happen. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects. This basic wonder is what animates us at Stripe. Things around us could be so much richer—in e

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I think another driver of this sentiment and behavior is that chasing scale strips you of some humanity. It puts your head too high up in the clouds. It removes you from what happens in the real world with real people. Pursuing something that can’t scale does the exact opposite: it grounds you. It’s a comforting and healing next act.

if someone’s much better than you at something, they probably try much harder. You probably underestimate how much harder they try. I’m not saying that talent isn’t a meaningful differentiator, because it certainly is, but I think people generally underestimate how effort needs to be poured into talent in order to develop it. So much of getting go

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