Matthew Giampetroni

As a founder, the most valuable optionality you have is the equity you haven’t sold, and the dilution you haven’t taken. But the second most valuable optionality you can have is a valuation that’s not too high. 

The exceptional (sometimes criticized) margins at Louis Vuitton did not arise from excessively high prices, but from the removal of all costs and damages due to intermediaries. Louis Vuitton’s competitiveness

was therefore structural”

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.

Your primary objective should thus be to maintain the right filters for people and ideas so that the delicate ecosystem in your head is as resilient and flexible as possible

the best stories to tell are the ones that have been told over and over again, and the stories of competitive mimesis and of deification followed by scapegoating are the oldest and best of all

Start-ups of any kind are awash in ambiguity. It’s the founder’s responsibility to hold that ambiguity for everyone, which is often a lonely job.