The Wisdom Wall

“the level of like, you know, I was completely wrong about everything, and now I'm going to fire half of you because I, of the mistakes I made will just cause you to hesitate in a way that could cost you the company itself.”

“the ones who truly Don't understand people are, don't actually turn out to be good CEOs. Like they, they don't get to that level. Like you can, you know, you can make fun of Larry Page or Elon or Zuck or so forth, but they are actually very smart about people.”

“It's not like making the old thing more efficient. It's a new medium. It's an actual new thing in the same ways that like movies weren't plays. Uh, you know, AI video is not video. The stories that you can tell are completely different because you can do things that you just, you know, without a. Million dollar budget,…”

“you're not giving them a shit sandwich. You're the greatest person in the world, but this is all fucked up. And I love you like that, that like people are onto that, like it's just too simple.”

“There's a big difference between taste and creativity and being a virtuoso violinist, right? Like those, those don't necessarily have to be the same thing. And it's great that, you know, people You know, whatever. Practice violin for three hours a day and like get amazing at it and all that kind of thing. But it, it's…”

“The CTO has got to marshal the resources of the whole company to get what he needs to get the job done. And if you go to like a junior person, you're like five levels below you and make her cry. You know, you're probably right, but like, you're never going to get what you want out of her. So like, you can't even be…”

“And if you lose your confidence, you hesitate. And if you hesitate as CEO, then somebody's got to step into that vacuum. And then that's when it becomes very like. Political and dysfunctional.”

“as you grow, like communication becomes your biggest challenge. And so it's just a way to go like, okay, I'm gonna Manually unscalably fixed communication in this organization right now. And the, the amazing thing about it is does tend to be very long lasting where like once they get that, um, then, you know, it…”

“if he's doing a bad job, like no job is better than a bad job.”

“whereas like only Elon could have financed Tesla, normal people can start to finance these things now because Elon has shown that it's possible. So it's a little bit like the four minute mile on that way, I would say.”

“integrity only matters when it's tested. Everybody has integrity. Everybody's honest until it's tested. And then when it's tested, very few people are, right? Like when it costs you money, when it costs you a deal, when it costs you your marriage, are you honest then?”

“Well, if you, um, if you see something below standard, uh, and you don't correct it, you set a new standard. And that's, uh, that's very true. And that's why they have to be specific because if they're not specific, you can't enforce it.”

“I see young people wreck themselves so much because they have an expectation that something about life is going to be fair. Like nothing about life is fair. It's not fair where you're born. It's not fair. What race you are. It's not fair. Like what your parents did. It's not fair. Like the job interviews aren't fair.…”