Building a company

Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that... See more

The first step of any meaningful pursuit is to severely underestimate its difficulty.

Software projects can be thought of as having two distinct stages: figuring out what to build (build the right product), and building it (building the product right). The first stage is dominated by product discovery, and the second stage is all about execution

I used to be a parrot, echoing other people's ideas, opinions, and beliefs, because I wasn’t sure of my own. I thought that by ‘borrowing’ and mimicking, I’d be more likeable, it’d be easier to seem cool, clever, or to belong. Looking back now, it gives me the ick—the amount of shit I nodded along to, gross. I think I was scared of looking stupid,... See more

It’s an entrepreneurial trope, and a tired one, to believe that I should maximize every aspect of launching . Most everybody who's been in my shoes heralds events as the best way to get people in the door, which is another way of saying that events are the best way to make money. Money is important, sure, but I’ve generally found it to be a shitty... See more