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
Even Thomas Watson is reputed to have said, in 1943, “I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
Nicholas Carr • The Big Switch
There is no credible evidence that Watson actually made this statement, it is almost certainly apocryphal.
IBM historians say a 1953 stockholders’ meeting is likely the origin: Thomas Watson described a business trip to gauge demand for IBM’s new 701 computer. He said “we expected to get orders for 5 machines,” but they returned with 18 orders.
It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.
Ryan Holiday • The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Inspo and Motivation
Most self-help stuff can be mulched into some version of “Calm the fuck down, keep moving, and have good goals“
Quotes and Human Stuff
As more human jobs become assisted, automated, or replaced by artificial intelligence, we must spend our hours where we have a competitive advantage over machines: developing new ideas, expressing old things in new ways, innovating process, and crafting the story that infuses our creations with meaning .
Scott Belsky • Creating in The Era of Creative Confidence
Remember: you + your cofounder vs The Problem
“I encourage founding teams to do everything they possibly can to remember that their co-founders are on their side”
Amy Buechler, Founder Coach at YC
Everyone freaks out, and they interpret the statement, ‘AI will affect my job’ as ‘AI will do my job for me.’
Those two things are not the same, because AI can be a tool or substitute. Just because the job may change doesn’t mean that the job will be eliminated.
Source: Kellogg Insight
Source: Rob Lennon
Be unapologetically yourself in your work . Infuse as much of YOU into the work as possible. It won't be for everyone, but the ones that do stay and listen will be absolutely entranced. It’s better to have a few true fans than a room of half-hearted listeners.
30 Lessons From Art / Business / Life — Kening Zhu
One must seek Knowledge, but be a little wary of finding it. Perhaps excessive, but one could say the idea of possessing knowledge represents a kind of complacency. This is what Socrates meant: Once you think you know, you stop looking. You cease your wonder.