Prioritize work over work-life balance; keep your focus on work at all times. Most importantly, work smart.
Do not fall in love my own ideas, come up with a quick and cheap and easy way to test the idea
Don't get too attached to your ideas; instead, find a fast, simple, and inexpensive way to test them.
Do not chase hard new things, position for yourself, position something that captures your curiosity. Pick something you are passionate about, and you are good at, and is able to contribute to the world.
Nothing is impossible.
Look for someone to collaborate with who shares your values, as that’s the most important factor. Also, consider their ability to learn and adapt quickly, which are even more crucial than their existing skills or experience. (Values > Adaptability > Skills)
Personality>Talent
Courage > Intelligence
Evaluate the character of a person's friends and associates to better assess them.
Great founders are frugal: They understand money should be spent in precisely certain and necessary areas.
Having somebody who you totally trust, who shares the vision, who has a little bit different set of skills, and also acts as a check on you is very crucial.
What makes company fail most of time is poor execution by the founders, not competitors.
The thing that’s always a big mistake is going after a giant market on day one. Start with a market where there are not many competitors.
Understand every risk, be crazy and also rational about every risk.
Be extremely obsessed with truth
Build your own brand. There’s already a book on you.
Most founder-led companies are entrepreneurially driven. Be obsessed with not only following the rules, but also making new rules. The ability to offense is much more important than to defense.
Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling the airplane on the way down. It’s like playing a video game with a thousand levels, and each level gets harder. At each level, you learn about yourself. The problem with success is that it amplifies every thing, including positive and negative parts.
Innovation is easier with a relatively small team that has to make a decisive and clear concentrated bet and that doesn’t tolerate any mediocre performers.
The ability to endure pain and suffering is way more important than the intelligence. The ability to work on something for a very very long period time, to handle setbacks and see the opportunities just around the corner is the way to success.
Networking is overrated. Go do something great, and your network will instantly emerge.
Figure out how to express the questions in no longer than 20 words. Ask questions precisely.
The art of storytelling is incredibly important. Money flows as a function of a story.
Ignoring the advice would get what I want in most of time.
Information matters. Everyone should have equal access to information.
Learning from other people’s mistake is a great way to improve.
Make principle decisions instead of business decisions in crisis.
Do not set high expectations.
Great founder needs to pay himself less than average in the early stage of the company.
Resilience, adaptability, high rate of learning, creativity, familiarity with the tools are important.
Use “Idiot index” to measure every work, every project. Be sure to complete a project/work in a short period of time.
Do not follow the rule; Break the rule; Create the brand and network
Utilize the power
Winner takes all.
How to deal with complex problems?
Know the intention of the problem
Simplify the problem
Decompose the problem into sub-problems
Decompose the solution into sub-solutions
For simple problem/project such as coding problems/math problems that don’t take up too much time, you can randomize the sub-problems/sub-solutions, and solve the problem one-by-one;
For complex problem/project such as paper/experimentation task that usually take up too much time, do not randomize the sub-problems/sub-solutions, optimize every solution.