Greatness

Taste requires originality. It invokes an aspirational authenticity. Writer George Saunders calls this “achieving the iconic space,” and it’s what he’s after when he meets his creative writing students. “They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their “iconic space” — the place from... See more

All these books, there is the decision you can make to compromise on the quality of your product or take a shortcut or do something you would never dare do it. I just read the biography of the guy that started In-N-Out. Compared to his contemporaries, the McDonald's and Carl's Junior and all this explosion of fast food that was happening at that... See more

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

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... See more

One way to aim high is to try to make something that people will care about in a hundred years. Not because their opinions matter more than your contemporaries', but because something that still seems good in a hundred years is more likely to be genuinely good.