Building a Business

"Distance and time are the two wedges that separate relationships.

When it really matters, get in the car (or on the plane) and meet them face-to-face.

When you want it to last, don't wait to talk about it. Solve it now before the gap becomes too wide."

"It's hard to build momentum if you keep dividing your attention."

We avoid doing simple things that work because they don't make us look smart.

Smart people feel stupid doing simple things, so we invent complicated alternatives that accomplish less but feel more intellectually satisfying.

Meanwhile, the people who dominate their fields are doing embarrassingly basic things, but they do them better than everyone

Most complexity is unnecessary, but we manage it instead of removing it because deletion requires courage that addition doesn't.

The people who get the most done don't agonize over decisions. It's not because they have better judgment. They've just structured their lives so being wrong isn't expensive.

When mistakes are cheap, you can move fast and fix what doesn't work. When mistakes are expensive, you overthink everything and still choose wrong.

This is why startups can run

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.

Anyone can move fast. That's the trap. Speed is cheap, but the ability to be fast without being reckless is expensive.

The chess master's lightning moves come from decades of slow study. The CEO who is in the weeds knows where the problems lurk.

Details don't slow you down; they speed you up.

"The amount of creative genius in any period is strictly in proportion to the amount of extreme attention."

"[T]his is my work. I have to take full responsibility for doing it right as well as doing it wrong. Doing it wrong isn’t bad, but doing it wrong and thinking you’ve done it right is."