Leo > Leo's Quotes

“The near future will see robot suits that allow paraplegics to walk, designer drugs that melt away certain forms of cancer, and computer code being used as both an international currency and a weapon to destroy physical infrastructure halfway around the world.”
― Alec J. Ross, The Industries of the Future

“venture capital funding in robotics is growing at a steep rate. It more than doubled in just three years, from $160 million in 2011 to $341 million in 2014.”
― Alec J. Ross, The Industries of the Future

“the market for consumer robots could hit $390 billion by 2017, and industrial robots should hit $40 billion in 2020. As”
― Alec J. Ross, The Industries of the Future

“In the future, the number of languages being spoken will not matter. You could host a dinner party with eight different languages, and the voice your ear will always be whispering the one language you want to hear.”
― Alec J. Ross

“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something good happens, and you need someone who will be excited for you. Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than he would be if it had happened to him. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE, THE PRODUCTS, AND THE PROFITS—IN THAT ORDER”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“Hard things are hard because there are no easy answers or recipes. They are hard because your emotions are at odds with your logic. They are hard because you don’t know the answer and you cannot ask for help without showing weakness.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“We have a very high churn rate, but as soon as we turn on email marketing to our user base, people will come back.” Yes, of course. The reason that people leave our service and don’t come back is that we have not been sending them enough spam. That makes total sense to me, too.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“When faced with a challenge, get smarter.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“Fear can be created quickly; trust can’t.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don’t empower them to fix what’s broken?”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“For many people, changing course is also a sign of weakness, tantamount to admitting that you don’t know what you are doing. This strikes me as particularly bizarre—personally, I think the person who can’t change his or her mind is dangerous. Steve Jobs was known for changing his mind instantly in the light of new facts, and I don’t know anyone who thought he was weak.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it. This, more than any elaborate party or turreted workstation, is why I love coming to work in the morning. It is what motivates me and gives me a definite sense of mission.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on—but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“We must remember that failure gives us chances to grow, and we ignore those chances at our own peril.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar

“Abundance is not about providing everyone on this planet with a life of luxury—rather it’s about providing all with a life of possibility.”
― Peter H. Diamandis, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

“The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.” Trying out crazy ideas means bucking expert opinion and taking big risks. It means not being afraid to fail. Because you will fail. The road to bold is paved with failure, and this means having a strategy in place to handle risk and learn from mistakes is critical.”
― Peter H. Diamandis, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World