Johann Van Tonder
@jvt
20 years in ecommerce, now CEO of a CRO agency. Probably doing analysis in R or building stuff with AI. Or walking on the beach. Yeah, probably that.
Johann Van Tonder
"There’s really no replacement for spending time with these things, working towards a deeper mental model of the things they are good at and the things they are likely to mess up. Combining with domain knowledge of the thing you are working on is key too, especially as that can help protect you against them making things up!"
- Simon Willison, attem
Everything you want, is on the other side of doing things you don't want to do.
Hard conversations
Work that is "boring"
Taking chances on things that might fail
Do the things you don't want to do.
Dr. Julie Gurnerx.comRaise your standards, pick up the pace, sharpen your focus, and align your people. You don't need to bring in reams of consultants to examine everything that is going on. What you need on day one is to ratchet up expectations, energy, urgency, and intensity.
Frank Slootman • Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
I spent so much of my life terrified what I was going to become and whether I was going to be right here, right now. God, how much time did I waste? Afraid I wasn't going to be right here, right now. If I could change the only thing I'd change about my whole life would be fearing less that I wouldn't get right here, the place that I was going
... See moreQuotes and Mental Health
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident.
Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time.
Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.
I don't play zero-sum games.
I noticed that whenever I was faced with a competitive, zero-sum game – a situation in which someone else had to lose in order for me to win, or vice versa I chose to opt out of that game completely.
- Tiago Forte on X
For me, the goal is always to use AI to help people think better. Writing is thinking. That’s it. And if we don’t forget that, I believe the future of writing is going to be very exciting indeed.
Nathan Baschez • Writing with Machines
I am seized by two contradictory feelings: there is so much beauty in the world it is incredible that we are ever miserable for a moment; there is so much shit in the world that it is incredible we are ever happy for a moment.
Paul Schmitt • Zadie Smith - Feel Free.pdf
Mental Health and Quotes
You must remove all subjective language from your strategy and see what’s left. What is subjective language? Anything that’s in the eye of the beholder, anything that’s a judgement, words like: •Good •Great •Incredible •World-class •Best •Smart •Etc.