Ben Horowitz: The Struggle
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, Ben Horowitz describes the struggle. Every entrepreneur starts her company with a clear vision for success. You …
Thought and Opinion
A Plunge and Squish View of the Mind
How can we bring our knowledge to bear on a problem? Does this resemble how we accumulate knowledge in the first place? A thoughtful passage by David Gelernter in Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software …
The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
Two years ago today, internet activist Aaron Swartz took his own life. At the time, Swartz was in the midst of being prosecuted for downloading academic journal articles. While 27 at the time of his …
The Relationship Between Design and Planning
While I’m not all that interested in military doctrine and tactics in and of themselves, I am interested in complex systems, how the weak win wars, and the lessons military leaders offer (for …
Ursula K. Le Guin on The Human Spirit
In her acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation’s 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Ursula K. Le Guin offered this soul-touching look at humanity. I think hard …
The Difference Between Losing and Being Beaten
Not every time you lose, are you beaten. And not every time you win, did you win. There is a difference between losing and being beaten, and it comes down to you. From Essentialism: The Disciplined …
Eight Ways to Say No With Grace and Style
In a world of more requests than we can possibly fulfill, learning how to say no with grace and style is a skill we all need. We should be saying no more than we say yes, although the opposite is …
Charles Dickens to The Times — I Stand Astounded and Appalled
On November 13, 1849 a crowd of over 30,000 people gathered outside a prison in South London to witness the public execution of Marie and Frederick Manning. Marie and Frederick, a married couple, had …
Andy Warhol on Loneliness
In his pseudo-memoir, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), which is more a collection of his thoughts on various subjects, Andy Warhol writes about the paradox of getting what …
Tiny Beautiful Things
On March 11, 2010, a new writer took over “Dear Sugar,” an advice column on the Web site the Rumpus. Things would never be the same. Slowly over the next two years, we learned a little more about her …
Brené Brown on The Difference Between Guilt and Shame
Brené Brown studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She’s a researcher-storyteller and author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, …
What Book has the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom?
Here is what happened when I asked twenty-seven thousand people “What is page for page the book with the most wisdom you’ve ever read?” My thinking was, and still is, that you need …
Your Response to Mistakes Defines You
Sometimes we lose our way. We all make mistakes. We focus on the wrong things. We pursue goals at all costs. We teeter on ethical and moral cliffs. We get too far down a slippery slope. We steal. We …
The Education of a Value Investor: A Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment
I read Guy Spier’s book, The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment, in a single sitting. The section of the book I was most interested in …
Sir William Osler: A Way of Life
“No mind, however dull, can escape the brightness that comes from steady application.” *** In several of his speeches, Charlie Munger has referred to Sir William Osler, the Canadian …
The Role of a Critic
“In many ways, the work of a critic is very easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.” *** On the role of a …