Cam > Cam's Quotes

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“The family adopted a motto: “Live dangerously—carefully.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“If you were negative or thought something couldn’t be done, you were not invited to the next meeting,” Mueller recalls. “He just wanted people who would make things happen.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. —Steve Jobs”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Physics could teach everything about the universe except why. That led to what he calls his adolescent existential crisis. “I began trying to figure out what the meaning of life and the universe was,” he says. “And I got real depressed about it, like maybe life may have no meaning.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Separating the design of a product from its engineering was a recipe for dysfunction. Designers had to feel the immediate pain if something they devised was hard to engineer.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Step one should be to question the requirements,” he says. “Make them less wrong and dumb, because all requirements are somewhat wrong and dumb. And then delete, delete, delete.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Optimism, pessimism, fuck that,” Musk answered. “We’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle,”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“The important thing with Elon,” he says, “is that if you told him the risks and showed him the engineering data, he would make a quick assessment and let the responsibility shift from your shoulders to his.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Musk had a resistance to regulations. He did not like to play by other people’s rules.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Musk has a rule about responsibility: every part, every process, and every specification needs to have a name attached. He can be quick to personalize blame when something goes wrong.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“By sending their factories abroad, American companies saved labor costs, but they lost the daily feel for ways to improve their products.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Most PhDs are irrelevant. The number that actually move the needle is almost none.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“How is this a business?” he asked. Later Hoffman would realize that Musk didn’t think that way. “What I didn’t appreciate is that Elon starts with a mission and later finds a way to backfill in order to make it work financially,” he says. “That’s what makes him a force of nature.”
― Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscrito encontrado em Accra

“For those who are not frightened by the solitude, everything will have a different taste.

In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise arrive unnoticed.

In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them.

In solitude, they will be able to decide whether it is worth asking that lost love to come back or if they should simply let it go and set off along a new path.

In solitude, they will learn that saying ‘No’ does not always show a lack of generosity and that saying ‘Yes’ is not always a virtue.

And those who are alone at this moment, need never be frightened by the words of the devil: ‘You’re wasting your time.’

Or by the chief demon’s even more potent words: ‘No one cares about you.’

The Divine Energy is listening to us when we speak to other people, but also when we are still and silent and able to accept solitude as a blessing.

And when we achieve that harmony, we receive more than we asked for.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Scars speak more loudly than the sword that caused them.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Don't try to be useful. Try to be yourself: that is enough & that makes all the difference.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning
I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our first battles – and generally lose.
I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated.
They are the ones who never fought.
They managed to avoid scars, humiliations, feelings of helplessness, as well as those moments when even warriors doubt the existence of God.’’
Manuscript Found In Accra – Paulo Coelho”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Excessive caution destroys the soul and the heart, because living is an act of courage, and an act of courage is always an act of love.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Allowing someone else to make us happy will make them happy too.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“the reward of our work is not what we get, but what we become”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“I fell asleep and dreamed that life was only Happiness.
I woke and discovered that life was Duty.
I did my Duty and discovered that life was Happiness.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“I'm not worried about tomorrow, because God is there already, waiting for me.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra