Patricia Mou

The greatest rewards come from working on something that nobody has a name for. If you possibly can, work where there are no words for what you do.

In this post, we outline our current models for modern-day tribe building. We hope to initiate an exchange on the topic, motivate others to look into this, too, and achieve more together.

The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, "ubunto." This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: "I am because we are; we are because I am."

By tribes, we refer to what is essentially a tight-knit support community. Members of a tribe have shared goals, values and interests. But that doesn’t yet capture all of why we are interested in tribes over other types of communities. Beyond the shared interests (which is something we also find in firms, unions or clubs, for example), a tribe is... See more

“As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to... See more

First principles are the Lego building blocks for thinking. These Lego blocks, once carefully assembled with forethought, are reusable. With the right set of first-principles, you can start mixing them in ways you couldn't before allowing you to think better and faster. 

More tools give you negative utility. They won't make the work go faster. But they will consume as much time as you are willing to waste.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” — E.F. Schumacher

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle