Elena

My number one value is the pursuit of excellence. I am drawn to being the best in the world at whatever I do. This obsession shapes who I am.

A core way I spend my time is in the company of people who are world-class in their fields, passionate people who are consistently driven to excel. A common thread I’ve noticed among them is a sense that... See more

ideas are not things you get. People tend to think that ideas are things like diamonds. And then you go out and you get them and you grab them and you bring them back. But that's not what ideas are. Ideas are things that grow.

Mo Willems: And so the way to make a book or a story is to have the tiniest inkling of an idea and then to plant it and you

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A good system is designed to be periodically cleared of cruft. It has a built-in counterbalance. Without this pressure, our bias drives us to add band-aid after band-aid, until the only choice is to destroy the whole system and start from scratch.

What we have long called the creator economy is evolving to become more of a “meaning economy,” where the creators and brands and experiences that engage us will do so through story, craft, and a deeper and more sophisticated sense of meaning. The creator economy was ultimately driven by content (enabled by ubiquitous access to content creation and... See more

Let me answer your implicit complaint: “The Turing Test will be eventually passed.” That’s right (in some settings, Turing’s original prediction has been already achieved), but the truth is that any human relationship — even digital ones, even those not especially intimate like the ones between writers and readers (I love you, though) — requires... See more

Why do furniture designers keep designing new chairs? We know it's not to solve the problem of "sitting." The chair is simply the medium. The true goal is something bigger: to inspire, to broaden our understanding of what's possible, or express something unique about what it means to be alive today.

It seems to me that while reading non-fiction, most folks are in searching mode. Most would be more intellectually productive, however, in chasing mode. It helps to have in mind a question, puzzle, or problem, and then read in order to answer your question, explain your puzzle, or solve your problem.

The architecture of digital platforms encourage us to consume information because it’s in front of us, not because it’s relevant. On Twitter, nothing has to be remembered, studied, applied, or reflected on. It’s an environment that promotes distracted thinking and superficial learning.