long-term thinking
musings on long-term thinking in a shortsighted world. we overestimate what we can do in a year, underestimate what we can do in 10 kinda thing.
Juan Orbea and
long-term thinking
Figma had $0 in revenue for 4 years.
Completely breaks the “rush something to market and start charging immediately” mindset that most try to adapt.
And it resulted in the largest acquisition of a private software company (ever) https://t.co/YLGBR9hJe0
Thousands of people will want to start a Substack or podcast. Something like 1% of them or less will stick with it consistently for 2+ years. If you commit to things for 10+ years, you develop what appear to be superpowers
Our modern world seeks to focus us towards the short term and praises quarterly growth. But in the real world, away from high frequency ledger entries and global capital flows. It takes 100-120 years for an oak tree to grow from seed to full canopy height. It takes three human generations to grow a tree.
Rethink Priorities
rethinkpriorities.org
it is important to have projects on the scale of an entire life rather than months or years
A league with 30 intense competitors requires a culture of finding new, better ways to solve repeating problems. In the short term, investing in that sort of innovation often doesn’t look like much progress, if any. Abraham Lincoln said “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
SAM H INKIE 3 6 0 1 S O U T H B R O A D S T R E E T
That's another thing too, where I'm only interested in people that do things for a long period of time. There is a subset of people that can start a great business or be a great investor for two years, five years, 10 years. I'm interested in people that, you started the conversation saying about Edwin Land and Estee Lauder. Okay. Two obsessives.... See more
Patrick O'Shaughnessy • Passion & Pain
the biggest surprise is that the most enduring companies are not mega companies. most of them have under 300 employees.