The second thing there was another thing I learned at Sequoia is that the culture of a business is built in the first six months by the first ten to 15 employees. These are magical, really, really important times. And I used to hear a lot even at Sequoia, a lot of entrepreneurs saying, “Hey, I'm too busy to think about culture. When we become a unicorn, when we grow, I'll worry about culture.” And for whoever has kids, it's almost like saying I'm too busy about educating my kids. When they turn 18, then I'll figure it out. Too late.
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Values & belief
Question
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why?
Time & hindsight
Let us not be so satisfied with the present, with deals and finances in hand that we get blindsided. Everything that has given cricket its power and influence in the world of sports has started from that fan in the stadium. They deserve our respect and let us not take them for granted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game.
Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011 source ↗
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David Vélez
Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank
Recorded
John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript)
source ↗
Drew Houston
Co-founder and chief executive of Dropbox
I was going to say work on what you love, but that's not really it. It's so easy to convince yourself that you love what you're doing — who wants to admit that they don't? When I think about it, the happiest and most successful people I know don't just love what they do, they're obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them.
Recorded
MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013
source ↗
Elinor Ostrom
Political economist; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 2009
Yes, but not with a formula. So there are many, many efforts now to decentralize and they create a rigid formula and give people rules from on top and say, 'Now it's yours.' And that isn't worked very well either. … And, you think about the variety. If you look at a countryside, think of the variety out there in terms of the ecological variety. Well, if people are going to manage ecological variety, no single set of rules will work in a semi-arid versus a tropical-wet region. They have to be different.
Recorded
Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009
source ↗
Michael Phelps
United States swimmer, 2000–2016
I think it's something that nobody's really talked about in the past because we're supposed to be this big, macho, strong person that has no weaknesses. You know, we're supposed to be perfect.
More from Rahul Dravid
View profile →I know it is utterly fanciful to expect professional cricketers to play the game like amateurs; but the trick, I believe, is taking the spirit of the amateur - of discovery, of learning, of pure joy, of playing by the rules - into our profession. Taking it to practice or play, even when there's an epidemic of white-line fever breaking out all over the field.
Recorded
Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011
source ↗
One of the biggest challenges that the game must respond to today, I believe, is charting out a clear road map for the three formats. We now realise that the sport's three formats cannot be played in equal numbers - that will only throw scheduling and the true development of players completely off gear.
Recorded
Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011
source ↗
One of the things, Bradman said has stayed in my mind. That the finest of athletes had, along with skill, a few more essential qualities: to conduct their life with dignity, with integrity, with courage and modesty. All this he believed, were totally compatible with pride, ambition, determination and competitiveness. Maybe those words should be put up in cricket dressing rooms all over the world.
Recorded
Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011
source ↗
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