From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
When faced with the inevitable, get relative.
Aging is a side-effect of being a machine with moving parts. All such machines, whether living or not, inherently create entropy in their structure. Living organisms have immensely sophisticated systems for exporting that entropy, but those systems are generally not 100% comprehensive, so aging still happens.
Power is seized with the gun and maintained with the pen. Controlling public opinion through propaganda and misinformation is the most critical task of an authoritarian power.
Mixed martial arts aren't like boxing. In boxing, if you lose on your way up? It's pretty much career over. In mixed martial arts, there are so many ways to win and lose... When that happens, you say, 'OK, what did I do wrong?' – you have to be honest with yourself.
The inexpressible depth of music... easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all of the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.
There's a great quote that is 'political correctness is tyranny with manners'.
We're such a 'more is better' culture and we have to redefine what we value, what creates satisfaction, and the 'currency' of our lives. In America, what are we told are the two most important things we need in life? Money and fame, baby! That's fine, but you can't chase those goals at the expense of your own character, that makes you a paper tiger, a fool.
We are under an existential threat now as humankind. Even a simple two-cell yeast has a survival instinct and evolves fast enough to try and survive. I don't understand why humans who are supposed to be these very complex creatures can see that we're heading towards a very, very dangerous future which could be irreversible, and why we're not doing absolutely everything possible now.
Tai Chi is the physical manifestation of the Taoist philosophy. It represents the union of yin and yang. It allows one to embrace the seeming contradictions in the world, and in business. How do you become a profitable business while also doing good for society? How do you embrace ambiguity while also using scientific thinking?
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.
The question I always ask them is '…what has our foreign policy got to do with Muslims travelling thousands of miles to go and kill other Muslims in Iraq and Syria?'
Every business makes money as a secondary purpose. It's the coincidental result of creating customer value and changing the world in some way that people are willing to pay for and find valuable.