Wisdom in fragments

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Competition is great for consumers, but nothing destroys enterprise value faster than intense competition. To succeed in commerce, you need a great operating team focused on the nitty gritty details of the business.

Either as a startup founder or a venture capital investor, you should not care about what others believe to be exciting or overhyped. Do your own primary research and make up your own mind.

Great founders such as Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Drew Houston of Dropbox, or Adi Tatarko of Houzz, are all on a mission to build a product or service that corrects something that they believe the world got wrong. They are on a mission to correct a personal problem or personal pain.

The workplace of the future is hard to predict specifically, but one thing we can predict is that we will increasingly rely on human intelligence and creativity as opposed to human capacity to perform repetitive tasks.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

A lot of that feeling of alienation that you see in The Office, Dilbert, and so-forth is driven by people feeling that they don't understand context, and ultimately decisions don't make sense.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

Fundamentally, it's really hard to work on intellectual and complex projects collaboratively. Complexity is underestimated, even by the people who are in the thick of it.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

I would love to say that we knew all the answers in advance, but the truth is that we discovered our product and opportunity, rather than planning for it.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

That's what entrepreneurship is all about–experimenting and finding a way of achieving some goal in the context of business. It's something I've always found fascinating.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

For thousands of years, sport has existed alongside religion as the pre-eminent medium through which social bonding takes place, and in contemporary culture football has become the pre-eminent sport of the world.

The real strength of our culture lies in what happens once our basic needs are met. As social capital develops, humans become increasingly able to perform feats way beyond the biological and cognitive limitations of the individual.

Biologist and systems theorist known for work on evolution and social cooperation

We have the unusual paradox of being both highly individualistic, yet in essence social. We exist in what I describe as a collective survival exercise.

Biologist and systems theorist known for work on evolution and social cooperation

The people who do better are somehow better connected. In other words, there is an inherent logic in the idea that the more connections individuals make within their communities the better off they will be emotionally, socially, physically and economically.

Something as small as a affordable ticket can make a huge difference to how someone in the community perceives a club… and ultimately, this perception, this brand is what generates more value and revenue for the club.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

In football, even though your revenue comes from a source that's linked to your core business, it's not your core business. The core business of any club is simple, to have success on the pitch.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

As a captain however, you don't have any power, but you still need to be able to influence people, do the right thing, and move people in the same direction.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend