Ben Casnocha Quotes

Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible.

Expose yourself to as much as possible. Attend conferences no one else is attending. Read books no one else is reading. Talk to people no one else is talking to.

The internet tends to make smart people smarter and dumb people dumber.

Long-term goals are dangerous. They limit you. They hinder you from reacting to new conditions.

I'm just the smallest dot in a big map of human history.

Sometimes Plan B can have the same desired outcome, but a different path for getting there.

It got a little stressful in my first two years of high school, trying to make conference calls with investors in between classes, but I definitely learned a lot of important time-management lessons.

Rule of thumb: Be skeptical of things you learned before you could read. E.g., religion.

If you really understand something, you can: 1) explain it using a clear metaphor and 2) explain the strongest counter-argument to the idea.

Talk to people no one else is talking to. Who would have thought that giving a speech at a funeral at age 12 would introduce me to a man who would introduce me to my first business contact who would introduce me to several other important people in my life. That's luck. That's randomness.

Taking on short term risk can involve switching jobs, joining new groups / associations in the area, launching a personal blog, running an experiment within your existing job. These are some practical ways to inject volatility into your life, and thus some risk.

I’m skeptical of passive learning. If you don’t write down what you’re hearing and learning, what the odds you remember it?

I to the We means that both the individual's effort and the power of the network matter, and they work in tandem. Someone with no skill won't get very far, no matter how strong the network. Similarly, someone with lots of skill but a weak network won't realize his or her fullest potential. So, you need both.

I have a broad range of interests, so I'll always be working on something.

I don't want to be normal. I want to be something else.

I really focused on three things in high school - my company, basketball and my school work.

One theme that fascinates me is cognitive enhancement. It seems only a matter of time until we live in a world where steroids for the brain are readily available to all. And once we come to grips with that reality, I suspect the debate over the ethics will be much more heated than the debate over steroids in baseball or any other sport, where the use is limited to a select group of freakish athletes.

Sometimes I have to pause to make the distinction between Ben the teenager and Ben the businessman.

If frequency with which you cite an education credential does not decrease over the course of your life, you’re not accomplishing very much.

I've always loved to write, and I kept a diary of what I thought about my business, being an entrepreneur and other things of interest to me.