“The American general felt that if we confronted the Russians with a determined show of force, they would probably back down. And you know what? He was probably right; but what does probably mean? If it's 90% then there was a 10% chance he was wrong.”
— Martin E. Hellman
Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

The quote archive

Wisdom in fragments

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

We don't currently have the accountability mechanisms in our digital life that we do in our physical life.

— Mitchell Baker

CEO and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation

The systems we now use exist at a scale that's actually hard to comprehend as human beings. On Facebook, you are one of several billion people and at that scale, it's easy to become a number, or simply a wallet.

— Mitchell Baker

CEO and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation

There is no healthy society without a healthy internet.

— Mitchell Baker

CEO and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation

The military have always done a great job of creating this band of brothers – groups who are so close-knit they very literally behave like family, and from an evolutionary perspective- we're wired to do anything to protect our family.

— Dr. Rowan Hooper

If we want to live and become 100 years old, we need to have parents and grandparents that have lived that long- that's it. There's not much we can do in terms of environmental influence, eating well, and living well – those things help of course but to get to great age, you need the genes.

— Dr. Rowan Hooper

You can't just roll out of bed and be the best in the world at something, you need to have great genes and put in the hard-work, get the breaks, and really have that balance of nature and nurture.

— Dr. Rowan Hooper

Understanding superhumans is to understand human potential. We have this immense potential which isn't always fulfilled individually, or as a species. I wanted to grab that by the scruff of the neck and write something positive about the best we can be.

— Dr. Rowan Hooper

I remember one day though, conversing with a primatologist and saying, 'oh, animals are just like us… we're not that special…' and he said, 'well, when did chimps build their own large hadron collider?' – I was gob smacked. That one comment made me realise how absurd it is to claim we aren't that different from other animals because, clearly, we're amazingly different.

— Dr. Rowan Hooper

Another hugely common mistake is optimising your business for investors, and not customers and employees.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

When you're starting out, your ambition shouldn't be defined by someone else's success criteria. That's something I struggled with, and still do.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

In the same way that kids would benefit from healthy, happy parents- startups would benefit from healthy, happy founders.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

If you are able to share the things you're scared people will find out? That's real transparency, and that's how you earn the trust that transparency can bring, but if it doesn't feel uncomfortable, it's just marketing.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

One of the biggest myths in startup-land is this idea that the pinnacle of startups is building a venture-scale company, backed by venture capital, growing exceptionally fast and being OK with high failure rates as a result; in other words, returning a significant amount of capital to an investor rather than any other outcome.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

In the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, we observe a consequential 24% increase in heart attacks the following day. In the Autumn, when we gain an hour, we see a corresponding 21% reduction in heart attacks.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

A lot of people in society understandably want to feel important, and one of the ways you do this is to show people how busy you are… and one of the ways you show people how busy you are is to describe how little time you have for sleep.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Lack of sleep is like a broken water pipe in your home, it leaks water into every nook and cranny, and erodes the fabric of your DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep