How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs

by Guy Raz

a hero has a crazy idea; people doubt her; she leaves the village to pursue her vision, faces untold obstacles, falls into an abyss, barely escapes death, but manages to come out the other side with whatever she was looking for and continues on her journey to an eventual triumphant return.

The only difference between them and you, at this moment, is that when opportunity presented itself, they went into the phone booth and put on the cape. They took the leap. That’s basically it.

the intersection of personal passion and problem solving is where good ideas are born and lasting businesses are built.

There is a name for a person who creates something purely out of passion: hobbyist. There is a name for a person who creates something out of passion that solves a problem only they have: tinkerer. There is a name for a person who creates something out of passion that also solves a problem they share with lots of other people: entrepreneur.

“And I also realized that there are things you can do in your twenties that if you don’t do them then, you will never be able to do them.”

“you don’t need that much to live on if you’re really enjoying what you’re doing.”

“It is the difference in life between things that are scary and things that are dangerous. There are plenty of things that are scary but aren’t dangerous. And there are things that are dangerous but not scary. And those are the things that get you,”

Failing is scary. Wasting your life is dangerous.

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang

“Our joke was ‘style and substance’: Adam working on basically everything in the bottle, and me doing everything around the bottle,”

“My best business decisions really have to do with picking people,”

It focuses on what the products can do for you, to the virtual exclusion of how the brand relates to you.

Why should I buy your product? Why should I join this company? Why should I be excited to work here? Why should I invest in this company?

That is the real recipe for success in the iterative process, and one every creator needs to get right if they want to turn their idea not just into a product, but into a business that is poised for real, sustained growth.

“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them

While Curt was defending his intellectual property just like Randy was, and rightfully so, he ended up exposing the thing he actually built—the brand, the business—to an existential risk instead of defending it from an existential threat, as Randy did. With the best of intentions, Curt lost sight of why he was suing and what actually needed protection.

Any successful founder will tell you that the impulse to do everything yourself, to believe that only you know best and then to build processes that reflect that belief, is endemic to entrepreneurship and has the potential to be incredibly destructive.

To succeed as you scale, you have to leverage every person in the organization.

“Find the right people and treat them right.”

“Because when you’re working in a business fifteen hours a day, you want to be with people you like and with whom you share values.”

That’s why I really feel like it’s important that you find people who share your values. When they do, they’re the ones who breathe life into the business.”

“Product plane crashes produce partnership problems,”

You can keep the lid on a pressure cooker for only so long. Eventually, all that pressure has to go somewhere. And if you don’t turn down the heat or press the release valve, all you’re really doing is setting the timer on a scalding explosion.

The power of a business done the right way is way more powerful than two rich people,”

time back to his employees as he can, so they can live their lives, be their whole selves, and bring those whole selves into the workplace with them every day.

“We want them to be who they are,”

“The whole world runs on luck. The question is, what you do with it.”