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.
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Question
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Values & belief
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.
John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript) source ↗
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Michael Phelps
United States swimmer, 2000–2016
Dan Pallotta
Founder of Pallotta TeamWorks; founder of the Charity Defense Council
This is what happens when we confuse morality with frugality. We've all been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead, but we're missing the most important piece of information, which is: What is the actual size of these pies? Who cares if the bake sale only has five percent overhead if it's tiny?
Steve Jobs
Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
No. We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. We also watch industry trends pretty carefully. But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
Recorded
Andy Reinhardt, Business Week Q&A in the Apple boardroom, extended online-only version, 25 May 1998
source ↗
Robert S. Langer
Biomedical engineer; Institute Professor at MIT
I didn’t realize that scientists were like that, and that people were like that. I would have thought — and I like to hope — that I encourage people rather than discourage people. I think you can say no and still say, “Boy, that might be a tough problem, but if you really work at it maybe you’ll solve it,” rather than, “No, it will never happen.”
More from David Vélez
View profile →I always say the Nubank story was very unlikely. It was a very low probability event. Again. We were going after these very big incumbent banks. Everybody told me, you know, you're Colombian. You have no idea what you're doing in Brazil. They're going to crush you. Like, don't. Just don't do it. And I did it mostly because everybody told me I couldn't do it. And so, if somebody tells me I can't do something, I want to go do it.
Recorded
John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript)
source ↗
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