Luc Cheung

Anyone can say no to crappy opportunities. Only a master will say no to good opportunities. If you don’t say no to good opportunities, you’ll never have the time to pursue great opportunities.

Saying no is hard. Nobody knew that better than Steve Jobs, who said:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not

... See more

On the importance of keeping a calendar:

The big thing is basically *everything* is on the calendar. Sleep is on the calendar, going to bed is in there and so is free time. Free time is critical because that's the release valve. You can work full tilt for a long time as long as you know you have actual time for yourself coming up. I find if you

... See more

Okay, if you had infinite time, what would you build?”

If you’ll indulge me, here’s my list of potential projects, with light editorializing.

Energy supply

• Synthetic fuel.


• Better polysilicon production tech. The Siemens process feels paleolithic.


• Flexible silicon solar arrays, ground mounted and ultra cheap (<$30k/MW).


• Radioactivity applications. “M

... See more

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.

Falling into the trap of thinking other users will be like you is especially pernicious because the people building the product are usually among that early adopter cohort. The easiest north star for a product person is their own intuition. But if they're working on a product that requires customer segmentation, being in the early adopter cohort... See more