You want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can't get a monopoly, in a big market right away; too much competition for that.

No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.

You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.

Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.

Obsess about the quality of the product.

In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.

Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.

No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.

Execution gets divided into two key questions: 1) can you figure out what to do and 2) can you get it done.

If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.

People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.

A man of substance should trust very carefully an online networking friend whose shared images are not often palatable to his taste.

I mean, making simulations of what you're going to build is tremendously useful if you can get feedback from them that will tell you where you've gone wrong and what you can do about it.

Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

My job driving the ambulance was not very severe, you did what you were supposed to do. That was my main job.

It is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth than to die for it.

Actually, the books were never a planned career path.

Noone's a leader if there are no followers.

The day was gray, the color of Europe.

If you look at astronauts closely, their eyes look kind of puffy. And it gives you this mild headache. But one of the advantages of that, if you will.