On building of All Trades

A century-long vision allows you to build something that mostly ignores short-lived fluctuations in public perception or personal feelings. With a vision of that duration, you can think outside of yourself. If you couple that with a hum-drum process of Google Sheets and brain-trust meetings, you can build something meaningful.

There is something... See more

I aspire to live consciously, to follow my own inherent energy, to help other human beings, and to immerse myself fully in the present moment.

Know what you want to stand out for, how you’re different, what you can do that no one else can that can’t be captured by an algorithm or simple market signals, at least not yet. 

There’s a market for almost everything. 

The most valuable things will always be the ones that are hardest to price.

Maximum leverage is the result of commitment, of daily persistence, of gradual and insane and apparently useless effort over time.

There’s no competition for cookbooks on making food out of soccer balls and hockey pucks.

There’s no competition for software that charges you to find out the temperature on Mars.

There’s no competition for a service that counts how many pairs of shoes you own.

In fact, in every market that’s worth entering, there’s competition. That’s what you’re... See more

I started this company in one of the recessions and had seen suppliers and customers go to the wall in droves. To me, getting more customers and more orders meant safety and security.

To the people who worked for me, growth meant change.

Conventional hiring processes are designed to recruit the most skilled people to fill a specific role at the right price. The experience can feel dehumanizing — it’s laden with unwritten rules, negotiation, posturing, and indirect communication (if you’re lucky) through recruiters.

The process, at its core, is a transaction of resources. It’s not... See more

Job descriptions are never exhaustive, even from the beginning. They represent a set of needs for a specific context and time, which after a few months no longer reflects reality. Yet companies hire people based on their ability to match that fixed job description. They hire for the short-term.

Why start from something so specific? Instead, find... See more

• Reflect on your progress. While job titles are fixed, your daily accomplishments are not. Writing every day to think about what you actually did today that made you a better version of yourself is a great exercise to ensure you focus on the right things. Journaling is a powerful tool to add to your mental gym.


• Conduct personal experiments. Making

... See more