founder's mentality

We all know “startups are hard,” but I think we tend to imagine that this difficulty is bounded, contained, modelable, a bit like running a marathon: yes, legs and lungs hurt, but that’s normal and appropriate, and we know the route, the distance, and that there’s a finish line. This is a kind of difficulty we can contend with without losing... See more

There is a filmmaker that worked for Pixar that put this beautifully, and he used the metaphor of doing anything difficult, but for your high purposes of building a company. He says, "If you're sailing across the ocean and your goal is to avoid weather and waves, then why the hell are you sailing?" You have to embrace that sailing means that you... See more

I can’t imagine anything less interesting in business than maximizing shareholder value. Yet this is what public companies are pressured — if not legally required — to do. A lot of non-public companies follow the same path towards performance and results.

To take it further, maximization as a concept just isn’t interesting to me. I don’t care about... See more

“I can’t see a way through”, said the boy. “Can you see your next step?" “Yes” “Just take that”, said the horse. - The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse @charliemackesy