Mental Models

Importance of corporate identity: Uber thinks of itself as a mobility company. If it moves, Uber believes it can wire it up to connect buyer to supplier - Dara Khosrowshahi on In Good Company podcast

Contrast this with Lyft seeing themselves as a human transport company, while Uber is getting into the delivery game

Ayn Rand: "You can avoid reality. But you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality". This is an apt analogy for over-motivated marketing/sales folks trying to optimize for the short-term, at the expense of fixing the real underlying (product) issue, or those who are gaming scorecards, rather than focusing on true financial bottom-line.

The Curse of Knowledge (aka functional fixedness): Experts in a particular system or industry can become so entrenched in their way of doing things that they struggle to recognize or adapt to fundamental shifts in their environment. Their deep knowledge and vested interests in the current system can create blind spots, making it difficult to see o

Eric Meijer (former Meta engineer) on the difference between running large teams producing an average consistent product vs. small teams producing a high-quality differentiated product:

"Large companies are like McDonalds. You need lots of processes to create a bland product with consistent quality using average employees. Small companies are like M

Mark Andreessen: crystallized intelligence (memory/recall) vs fluid intelligence (reasoning) - When you come across a problem you haven't encountered before, you rely on fluid intelligence to solve it. AI is at human level when it comes to fluid intelligence, but far exceeds humans in crystallized intelligence. We should learn how to use AI so

Dutch Disease is an economic phenomenon when one overly-important sector of the economy pulls away capital, talent, & resources from other sectors. The canonical example of this is energy. Oil in Saudi Arabia takes up so much talent & capital that it is hard for other industries to properly develop there. Similarly, countries / cities that

Carl Jung on how indecisive people are not just delaying their decision, they are letting others decide on their behalf:

"The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you"

Cenk Uygur on cultural hardware vs. cultural software (from Lex Friedman podcast):

“You have a spectrum of integrity, empathy, etc. That’s what I would call your hardware. You layer on top of that your software, which is cultural influences, your parents, media, your friends. So, now when you’re in certain industries, they value more integrity. So,

Seinfeld on finding passion for something where you have soul in the game:

Seinfeld: “I'm never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I'm thinking, could I do something with that?”
Howard Stern: “That, to me, sounds torturous.”
Seinfeld: “Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with."

Supercommunicators (Charles Duhigg):

1) Ask a question

2) Repeat the answer back in your own words

3) Ask if you got that right

Remember: reciprocate vulnerabilities to generate mutual trust