Perfection is always a desired goal, but it cannot be a primary goal. Expression has to be the primary goal, because otherwise, there is no need for an actual person to be there.
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
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Which living person do you most admire, and why?
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In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?
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What would you like to be remembered for?
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Death & what remains
The second thing there was another thing I learned at Sequoia is that the culture of a business is built in the first six months by the first ten to 15 employees. These are magical, really, really important times. And I used to hear a lot even at Sequoia, a lot of entrepreneurs saying, “Hey, I'm too busy to think about culture. When we become a unicorn, when we grow, I'll worry about culture.” And for whoever has kids, it's almost like saying I'm too busy about educating my kids. When they turn 18, then I'll figure it out. Too late.
John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript) source ↗
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Yo-Yo Ma
Cellist
Recorded
Voice of America, VOA feature, January 2009, Voice of America, 2 November 2009
source ↗
Jia Tolentino
Writer
if there is anyone who’s telling you, “Here’s what you should do,” they are somehow lying to you
Ursula K. Le Guin
Novelist, poet and essayist
Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.
Recorded
National Book Awards ceremony, New York, 19 November 2014, ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site), 19 November 2014
source ↗
Richard Feynman
Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing—and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.
Recorded
Caltech commencement address, Pasadena, California, Caltech Engineering and Science (Caltech Library archive), 1 June 1974
source ↗
More from David Vélez
View profile →No, falta mucho por construir. Estoy muy contento con lo que hemos podido construir en Nubank en estos casi diez años. En lo personal, tengo una familia con cuatro niños chiquitos y eso es un desafío gigantesco, que crezcan, sean buenas personas y lleguen a ser buenos ciudadanos. Es un gran desafío en el que estoy muy enfocado.
Vicky, qué pregunta más difícil (risas). Voy a hablarle de los casos que nos han inspirado, como Charles Feeney, cofundador de los Duty Free Shop en los aeropuertos. Él hizo eso en los años ochenta. Se volvió uno de los hombres más ricos del mundo cuando vendió su compañía e inmediatamente se dedicó a la filantropía y gastó todo su dinero en metas sociales.
Moving closer to work. I live in São Paulo, Brazil, and I used to spend an hour or more in traffic every day, just sitting in the car getting frustrated and anxious. It was a waste of my time.
Now I try to protect one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon where I turn off Slack, and I don't check email. I might read, or write in a journal, or just go for a walk. It's become one of the most important parts of my day. It's when I'm most creative, and when I hit on ideas that can take the company in new directions.
Me gustaría que la gente se viera empoderada a construir, a resolver problemas. Que salgamos muchas veces de esa visión de víctimas en la que dependemos de muchas fuerzas. Que veamos problemas como grandes oportunidades para ayudar a resolver. Por ejemplo, frente a esa mala experiencia con los bancos, como me pasó en Brasil, mucha gente se hubiera sentado y quejado del banco. Pero vi una oportunidad gigantesca de ir y competir contra él.
Queremos crear un ambiente familiar en donde no todo sea fácil, en donde no todo les caiga del cielo, sino que puedan construir su propio camino y tengan ese sentido de desesperación y esa hambre. Eso significa también que todo ese dinero no se les va a dejar a ellos. Se les dará muchísimo amor, como les damos, y muchas oportunidades de educación y de desarrollo, pero todo ese dinero no es para ellos.
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