traims > traims's Quotes

“Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“The most important thing to understand is that the job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive. When I was managing thousands of people at Hewlett-Packard after the sale of Opsware, there was an incredible number of incoming demands on my time. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Little companies wanted to partner with me or sell themselves to me, people in my organization needed approvals, other business units needed my help, customers wanted my attention, and so forth. As a result, I spent most of my time optimizing and tuning the existing business. Most of the work that I did was “incoming.” In fact, most skilled big company executives will tell you that if you have more than three new initiatives in a quarter, you are trying to do too much. As a result, big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup executive, nothing happens unless you make it happen. In the early days of a company, you have to take eight to ten new initiatives a day or the company will stand still. There is no inertia that’s putting the company in motion. Without massive input from you, the company will stay at rest.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place. The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t know the answer. The Struggle is when your employees think you are lying and you think they may be right. The Struggle is when food loses its taste.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship

“On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

“Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they're doing it because they care about the team.”
― Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

“If you build software, every error message is marketing”
― Jason Fried, Rework

“If you're opening a hot dog stand, you could worry about the condiments, the cart, the name, the decoration. But the first thing you should worry aout is the hot dog. The hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary.”
― Jason Fried, Rework

“We're willing to lose some customers if it means that others love our products intensely. That's our line in the sand.”
― Jason Fried

“The longer something takes, the less likely it is that you're going to finish it.”
― Jason Fried, Rework

“Everyone on your team should be connected to your customers—maybe not every day, but at least a few times throughout the year. That’s the only way your team is going to feel the hurt your customers are experiencing. It’s feeling the hurt that really motivates people to fix the problem. And the flip side is true too: The joy of happy customers or ones who have had a problem solved can also be wildly motivating. So”
― Jason Fried, ReWork

“You could have chosen any number of career paths, but this one is
exciting. It’s creative. It requires deep thinking and rewards you with
a sense of being able to do something that most of the people you meet
each day can’t imagine being able to do. We may worry about progressing
to the next level, making an impact, or gaining respect from
our co-workers or our peers in the industry, but if you really stop to
think about it, we’ve got it really good.

Software development is both challenging and rewarding. It’s creative
like an art-form, but (unlike art) it provides concrete,measurable value.

Software development is fun!

Ultimately, the most important thing I’ve learned over the journey that
my career in software development has been is that it’s not what you
do for a living or what you have that’s important. It’s how you choose to
accept these things. It’s internal. Satisfaction, like our career choices, is something that should be sought after and decided upon with intention.”
― Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

“It seems backward, but keeping your mind focused on the present will get you
further toward your goals than keeping your mind focused on the goal itself.”
― Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

“I don’t know” is not a phrase for the insecure.”
― Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

“You can’t creatively help a business until you know how it works.”
― Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

“Be courageous enough to be honest.”
― Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

“So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!”
― Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.”
― Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.”
― Carol S. Dweck

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“IF, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you're open to accurate information about your current abilities, even it it's unflattering. What's more, if you're oriented toward learning, as they are, you need accurate information about your current abilities in order to learn effectively”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It's about seeing things in a new way. When people...change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. Their commitment is to growth, and growth take plenty of time, effort, and mutual support.”
― Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential

“Don’t judge. Teach. It’s a learning process.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“If you had to choose, which would it be? Loads of success and validation or lots of challenge?”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“This is something I know for a fact: You have to work hardest for the things you love most.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential