Jay Matthews

Maria Popova reflects on the different worlds of Lightman's book, describing the different ways in which different worlds relate to time.

Neuropolis: Our relationship with cities from Mumbai to Manhattan. As our cities change, they inspire a change in us: "A new generation of explorers, cyclists and psychogeographers are remapping urban landscapes through non-places. In this expanding urban maze, waymarks — as ever — are key to community cohesion ." Cities are described as "an... See more

Narratives move the world. For early-stage founders, an impactful story is magnetic to talent, capital, and customers. Generalist Capital exists to help great entrepreneurs create and capitalize on narrative momentum.

Freud’s thinking was also influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, which emphasized individual organisms’ competitive struggle for survival.

C. Failing is OK: It usually takes overconfidence to stay the course through adversity, but a humble mind to evolve and iterate. While it became clear to me that I had overestimated my risk-tolerance for working in an early-stage start-up, I also began to realize from having personally invested in start-ups that I much preferred being the investor... See more

[on Wilczek's current project]: weaving together threads from across the frontiers of knowledge, optimistically pushing ever deeper, never satisfied with an incomplete understanding of the universe and all the potential it holds for us. And having a great time doing it.

To the American way of thinking, respect is bound up with honesty, and honesty is essential to personal responsibility. Hiding, dissimulation, and other forms of deception amount to disrespect. You lie only to those beneath you—children, constituents, employees.

"We need political leaders, business leaders and policymakers who understand the interactive nature of the planet's systems and who recognise the geographical nature of the challenges we all face. The courage and ambition of those leaders will depend upon the demands made of them by us. So we need to be informed, too . Never has geography been so... See more

The idea is to initially attract users with a single-player tool and then, over time, get them to participate in a network. The tool helps get to initial critical mass. The network creates the long term value for users, and defensibility for the company.