In a startup, absolutely nothing happens unless you make it happen.
My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy
The difference between a vision and a hallucination is that other people can see the vision.
There are people who are wired to be skeptics and there are people who are wired to be optimists. And I can tell you, at least from the last 20 years, if you bet on the side of the optimists, generally you’re right.
Innovation doesn't come from the big company. It never has and never will. Innovation is something new that looks crazy at first glance. It comes from the 19-year-olds and the start-ups that no one's heard of.
In short, software is eating the world
In the startup world, you're either a genius or an idiot. You're never just an ordinary guy trying to get through the day
Most of the big breakthrough technologies/companies seem crazy at first: PCs, the internet, Bitcoin, Airbnb, Uber, 140 characters.. It has to be a radical product. It has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, ‘I don’t get it, I don’t understand it. I think it’s too weird, I think it’s too unusual.’
You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.
My goal is not to fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.
If you're unhappy, you should change what you're doing.
We call it the 'Rule of Crappy People'. Bad managers hire very, very bad employees, because they're threatened by anybody who is anywhere near as good as they are.
People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.
Learning to code is the single best thing anyone can do to get the most out of the amazing future in front of us.
Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened.
I don't waste time being depressed.
You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.
The great companies get built by their founders
Almost every dot-com idea from 1999 that failed will succeed.
The 2 hardest things you'll have to do when running a company are recruiting and talking people out of leaving.
People tend to think of the web as a way to get information or perhaps as a place to carry out e-commerce. But really, the web is about accessing applications.
The most important thing is to get on the right horse.
If you think you can execute a previously failed idea, you just have to be able to show that now is the time.
A lot of things you want to do as part of daily life can now be done over the Internet.
Ten to 20 years out, driving your car will be viewed as equivalently immoral as smoking cigarettes around other people is today.
