I asked Kelly about the tradeoffs of focusing on a single thing if you want to be great (which is what I had been getting at before). “Greatness is overrated,” he said, and I perked up. “It’s a form of extremism, and it comes with extreme vices that I have no interest in. Steve Jobs was a jerk. Bob Dylan is a jerk.”
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.
agree w/this point. speed gets less important the more competitive your market is. when the market is already full of crap you really need to rise above the rest
When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the... See more