We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in ten years.
It's the classic instant gratification versus long term mindset.
A ten year timeline will set you free.
Parkinson’s Law.
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
"How can you achieve your 10 year plan in the next 6 months?" — Peter Thiel
Forgive me for putting it right after Gates' Law. But why not?
The Paradox of Choice.
More choices make decisions hard.
Your friends can't decide what to eat? Don't pass the parcel. Ask them to pick between two options. Same for Netflix. And so on. Saves time!
Eliminate indecision by reduction.
Hanlon's Razor.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Not everyone's out there to get you.
There can be honest mistakes.
Leverage.
Leverage is a force multiplier.
You can make things where the effort it takes to scale, or to build a hundred, is identical to the effort it takes to build one, like a book, or a YouTube video.
You can go to business school, spend two more years of your life, spending $100K or so in bills, or you can just listen to Steve Jobs.
I’ve read his biography every year for the last 10 years.
Here's what I learned about startup, marketing, creativity, career, life, and more:
Customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
When Jobs unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter asked him what type of market research he had done. Jobs replied: “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?”
Think different.
Turkish Coffee? So Fucking What?
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When someone in Turkey tried to explain to Jobs how Turkish coffee was made very different from anywhere else, Jobs thought, “So fucking what?”
"Who in Turkey even gave a shit about Turkish coffee?"