Emilie Kormienko

Any idea that is sufficiently different from your current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder a threatening idea is in a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates.

When the economic incentives are stacked up against you, it’s easy to convince yourself nothing matters. But even if you ignore that inner voice, it never goes away. It's always there, poking and prodding, reminding you that you're off track, and that you have so much more to give.

Absolute success is luck. Relative success is choices and habits.

According to learning theory, a grade is just a reward (or punishment!) signal. However, one of its obvious shortcomings is that it is totally lacking in precision. The grade of an exam is usually just a simple sum—and as such, it summarizes different sources of errors without distinguishing them. It is therefore insufficiently informative: by... See more

It’s good to involve the community, yet it is your project and vision at the end of the day.

The stereotypical example of a bottom-up organization is a slime mold. A number of different independent actors make individual decisions, leading to complex emergent behavior in the colony.

In the offline world, supply scarcity is the main constraint on growth. Franchises can distribute their brand (and acquire customers) at a national and international level via linear and digital advertising, but revenue — and consumption — still occurs at a local level. Thus to grow requires growing a franchise’s retail footprint, and the franchise... See more

EZRA KLEIN: What might be true is if you spend all your time in point-scoring environments, you will become used to life being about scoring points. And you will begin to adopt that approach and begin to adopt those values without even realizing it. You’ll become habituated. The game will change you. That is a second principle I want to put out... See more