Greatness
exploring the foundations of quality and the currents that fight against mediocrity
sari and
Greatness
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.
Tuomas Artmanx.com
a thought-provoking read on energetic aliens - the rare few that can sustain their focus on cognitive tasks for more than the avg 4-6hrs a day without burning out.
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.”
Brie Wolfson • Flounder Mode
I’ve always been a freak for the zealous pursuit of the better, especially where culture is concerned. I love the story of it, and also the motive. So that, too, is what this book is—a celebration of the art that happens when instinct meets rigor.
Adam Moss • The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing
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?
Julie Zhuox.comTaste 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
Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”
A lot of companies talk about quality, but if you want your brand to be timeless, you have to be a fanatic about it. Before we launch a Louis Vuitton suitcase, for example, we put it in a torture machine, where it is opened and closed five times per minute for three weeks. And that is not all—it is thrown, and shaken, and crushed. You would laugh
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