Greatness

every good thing is a product of someone’s obsession

“Grind it out. You can make something look like magic by going further than most reasonable people would go.”

The best reason to not cut corners: If you didn't get the response you were hoping for, how can you know if it was because your idea was bad vs. you cut corners?

One of the best ideas I learned from Kobe Bryant: “Don’t copy the what. Copy the how” Kobe would study greatness in any domain. Sports, music, business, art, whatever. This is why: “No matter what discipline you are in, there’s a common denominator in how we approach our… Show more

If building something great isn’t painful, you’re probably not building the best you can. Arguments, mis-steps, fights, back-tracking, re-discovering, frustration, throwing it away, trying again - these are all painful requirements for build a great product.

My philosophy re startup speed has completely changed over the last few years. I grew up at Uber, professionally, which held speed as the absolute, ultimate goal. Now, I still value speed, but hold quality as the binding constraint.

An underrated way to succeed at anything is simply to be ten times better. Everyone wants to have a unique idea or be a monopoly but you can just be ten times better instead. In a lot of areas, no one is really trying. The world is coated with a film of inertia.

Rick Rubin on turning Metallica around It’s always better to think and work backwards from great than it is to work forward from good

In 1998, Citibank and The Travelers Insurance Company merged. They hired legendary designer Paula Scher to create a new logo. In their first meeting, on a napkin, Scher drew what became the iconic Citi logo. As Scher got up to leave the room, someone from the Citi team asked,… Show more

Great artists don’t study art history to figure out what art to create. Great founders don’t analyze the market to figure out what product to build.