Check-ins are cool, but kind of a pain.

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.

Maybe it’s NOT Maybelline. Maybe you were just born with it.

I don't want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.

When you're coming out, you have to deal with the whole world saying 'Oh! You're an abominable snowman'.

Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.

Writing is alone, but I don't think it's lonely. Ask any writer if they feel lonely when they're writing their book, and I think they'll say no.

Life with God is an individual matter, and general formulas do not easily apply.

I would like to go to Russia very much — although the bastards murdered half my family.

When you meet women, don't pretend to be anything that you're not.

I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched by my mother's gift for analysis.

The most powerful music is music with purpose.