Quotes 2024
I read a bunch of books again this year! Here are the best ideas that I mined from all of them:
The output of any LLM will be middle of the road... unless you steer it toward the edges.
"The AI will not naturally deliver novelty (as we discussed above, it tends to give the crowd-pleasing "average" answer that is most likely from its training data), but we can make it do so with a little work. We need to push the AI from an average answer to a high-variance, weird one."
— Ethan Mollick (Co-Intelligence)
Create first, edit later.
"While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment."
— Kevin Kelly (Excellent Advice for Living)
Choose done over perfect.
"Always demand a deadline because it weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. A deadline prevents you from trying to make it perfect so you have to make it different."
— Kevin Kelly (Excellent Advice for Living)
Change requires change.
"To change something, we need to change something."
— Steve Mann (Easy Peasy Doggy Squeezy)
Do it 100 times before deciding to quit.
"That's what the Law of 100 is about. It's simple: Whatever you put yourself to, do it 100 times before you even THINK of stopping. This stops you from succumbing to what Seth Godin calls "the dip," the moment in a long slog between starting and when mastery sets in where you start hating the work and you want to quit. ... If you want to start a YouTube channel, publish 100 videos. If you're doing a newsletter, write 100 emails. If you're starting a new hobby like chess or guitar, practice for 100 days. If you're creating a business, directly pitch 100 customers."
— Noah Kagan (Million Dollar Weekend)
If it were easy, everyone would have the perfect dog.
"Many people are too lazy to achieve the results they want. If having a spectacular relationship with your dog were super easy, everyone would have that."
— Mike Ritland (Team Dog)
Your growth is your responsibility.
"Doctors don't make you healthy, teachers don't make you smart, trainers don't make you fit, gurus don't make you rich. At some point, realize your growth is your responsibility."
— Oliver Staark (Human Chess)
A problem doesn't guarantee a market.
"Anyone who has ever tried to start their own business will tell you the existence of a problem does not mean there’s a market for solving it."
— Marianne Bellotti (Kill It with Fire)
Find demand, don't create it.
"Your job is not to create demand for something that seems exciting, it's to find existing demand and satisfy it."
— Noah Kagan (Million Dollar Weekend)
If it's not on your shopping list, the price tag doesn't matter.
"If you don't need something, you don't have to buy it—so who cares if it goes up in price."
— David Clark (The Tao of Charlie Munger)
Don't be a buyer of things, be a seller of money!
"Don't regard yourself as someone who wants to buy a refrigerator. Regard yourself as someone who wants to sell money."
— Herb Cohen (You Can Negotiate Anything)
The best code is the code that does the job.
"Engineers tend to overestimate the value of order and neatness. The only thing that really matters with a computer system is its effectiveness at performing its practical application."
— Marianne Bellotti (Kill It with Fire)
Every new feature is a party—just don't forget to clean up before the next one.
"Launching a new feature is like having a house party. The more house parties you have in your house before you clean things up, the worse condition your house will be in."
— Marianne Bellotti (Kill It with Fire)
Don't get in the way of your intuition.
"We are never taught to listen to our intuitions, to develop and nurture our intuitions. But if you do pay attention to these subtle insights, you can make them come true."
— Steve Jobs (Make Something Wonderful)
Random rewards create consistent responses.
"Rewarding should be like playing a slot machine – your dog will never know when a pay-off will occur, but they'll always respond to you in the hope that it will!"
— Mat Ward (What Dogs Want)
Consider the incentives behind seemingly crazy beliefs.
"When someone believes something that seems crazy to you, consider what incentives, from their point of view, make that belief useful."
— Derek Sivers (Useful Not True)
Every problem is just a relationship problem in disguise.
"All problems are interpersonal relationship problems."
— Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage To Be Disliked)
Stay in your lane.
"In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people's tasks, or having one's own tasks intruded on."
— Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage To Be Disliked)
We might seek freedom from others but we can't exist alone.
"We seek release from interpersonal relationships. We seek to be free from interpersonal relationships. However, it is absolutely impossible to live all alone in the universe. In light of what we have discussed until now, the conclusion we reach regarding 'what is freedom?' should be clear."
— Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage To Be Disliked)
Sometimes a feeling is just the justification for a desired action.
"Your friend is insecure, so he can't go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he's creating a state of anxiety."
— Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage To Be Disliked)
Everyone's just waiting for someone else to make the first move.
"Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them; they are waiting for you to send them an email; they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead."
— Kevin Kelly (Excellent Advice for Living)
The best way to gain a friend is to show up as one.
"The secret to getting friends is to be a friend. The secret to getting help when in need is to give help to those in need. The secret to learning is to teach."
— David Clark (The Tao of Charlie Munger)
Every fact is a choice.
"People only take pictures of what they want to show. Remember this when someone gives facts as proof that their viewpoint is true. Facts can be true, while the perspective is not."
— Derek Sivers (Useful Not True)
People prefer a rosy past over a utopian future.
"People found it much easier to believe in a rose-tinted view of the past than a utopian future. They still do: hence 'Take Back Control' and 'Make America Great Again'."
— David Mitchell (Unruly)
It's the interpretation of the past—not the past itself—that shapes the present.
"Regardless of what may have happened in the past, it is the meaning that is attributed to it that determines the way someone's present will be."
— Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage To Be Disliked)
Go travel to interests.
"To have a great trip, head toward an interest rather than to a place. Travel to passions rather than destinations."
— Kevin Kelly (Excellent Advice for Living)
Draw to see, write to think.
"Draw to discover what you see. Write to discover what you think."
— Kevin Kelly (Excellent Advice for Living)
It's easier to prevent a bad habit than it is to break one.
"It's probably ten times more difficult to break a bad habit than it is to prevent establishing one in the first place"
— Zak George (Zak George's Guide to a Well-Behaved Dog)
Put your values in your calendar.
"Your values have to be reflected in what you schedule."
— Sarah Drasner (Engineering Management for the Rest of Us)