Quoteworthy

"Most problems would benefit from a paper and pencil and a room to yourself rather than a large..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:11:36 +0800

“Most problems would benefit from a paper and pencil and a room to yourself rather than a large disruptive meeting. Big ideas require big brainstorming, and small ideas just take some self-reflection.”

- Chat Trumps Meetings

"To all my friends still at @HTC - just quit. leave now. it’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:25:25 +0800

“To all my friends still at @HTC - just quit. leave now. it’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much happier, I swear.”

- Eric Lin, former Product Strategy Manager at HTC

"We are not a generic “video” company that streams all types of video such as news, usergenerated,..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:17:23 +0800

“We are not a generic “video” company that streams all types of video such as news, usergenerated, sports, music video, or reality. We are movies and TV shows.”

- Netflix’s Long Term View

"Interestingly, all of this is only possible because Google was behind it. Any startup could have..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:33:53 +0800

“Interestingly, all of this is only possible because Google was behind it. Any startup could have come up with a similar concept, but the product would lack the integration that Now has. Because Google likely manages quite a bit of your life, whether it’s your email, calendar, bus route, or school papers, they can extract information from each of these individual services to piece together a picture of your life you didn’t even know existed.”

- Google Now is the future

Google reportedly launching paid YouTube subscriptions this...

Mon, 06 May 2013 22:39:36 +0800

Google reportedly launching paid YouTube subscriptions this week
By Matt Brian, theverge.com

Google is set to introduce new paid subscriptions for specialist video channels on YouTube, as it looks to move beyond its main advertising revenue stream and deliver a wider range of content. According to the Financial Times,…

"It’s easier to tell good design from bad when you’re not looking at current fashions. (Try looking..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:31:53 +0800

“It’s easier to tell good design from bad when you’re not looking at current fashions. (Try looking at the haircuts in an old high school yearbook.)”

- http://paulgraham.com/design.html#hn

"I saw Bill Gurley say that you can only make money by being right about something that most people..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:01:45 +0800

“I saw Bill Gurley say that you can only make money by being right about something that most people think is wrong. His logic was that you can’t make money by being wrong. And you can’t make money by being right about something everyone else knows. So you have to be right about something that most people think is wrong. I really like that framework.”

- Fred Wilson, [Return and Ridicule](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/04/return-and-ridicule.html)

"Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 10:56:39 +0800

“

Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their products may be. In the past, it required no brilliance for people to foresee the fabulous growth that awaited such industries as autos (in 1910), aircraft (in 1930) and television sets (in 1950). But the future then also included competitive dynamics that would decimate almost all of the companies entering those industries. Even the survivors tended to come away bleeding.

Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not mean we can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of competitors battle for supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.

”

- Warren Buffet, 2009 Berkshire Hathaway annual letter, via http://dcurt.is/bleeding-survivors

"Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting,..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:08:25 +0800

“

Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.

”

- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577366332400453796.html

"There is no AWS-equivalent for hardware. To get manufacturing right, entrepreneurs often end up..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 09:16:37 +0800

“There is no AWS-equivalent for hardware. To get manufacturing right, entrepreneurs often end up living in China for months and even years.”

- http://cdixon.org/2013/04/30/hardware-startups/

"The future is extremely hard to see through the lens of the present, and it’s very easy to..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:24:11 +0800

“The future is extremely hard to see through the lens of the present, and it’s very easy to unconsciously dismiss the first versions of it as frivolous or useless. Or as stupid ideas.”

- http://dcurt.is/what-a-stupid-idea

"Since it is so short, at six seconds or less, it feels very incomplete if it doesn’t loop."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:17:22 +0800

“Since it is so short, at six seconds or less, it feels very incomplete if it doesn’t loop.”

- The Six-Second Film Grows Up : The New Yorker

"The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content..."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:01:49 +0800

““The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, put it recently.”

- Four superlatives for Netflix, which is now bigger than HBO in the US

"One thing we seldom get are reviews of products after they’ve been used for an extensive period of..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:17:40 +0800

“One thing we seldom get are reviews of products after they’ve been used for an extensive period of time, a year or even further out. Nearly all of the product reviews we read (and the ones I usually write, personally — I’m not pointing fingers) are about devices that are only a week or two old.”

- http://verynicewebsite.net/2013/04/not-a-lot-of-nexus-sales/

"@sriramk @rabois @hunterwalk Keep hating… and while you’re doing so Foursquare will keep becoming..."

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:01:46 +0800

“@sriramk @rabois @hunterwalk Keep hating… and while you’re doing so Foursquare will keep becoming the location layer for the Internet.— Dennis Crowley (@dens) March 16, 2013”

- Check In, Flame Out: How To Save Foursquare

"I’ve never heard of anyone successfully creating and launching an idea fueled by the power of..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:21:36 +0800

“I’ve never heard of anyone successfully creating and launching an idea fueled by the power of consensus. Lots of people are going to hate your idea, hate that you’re leading it, and hate that it’s ruining the work they’re doing. No matter what you’re doing, you’re going to be stepping on someone else in the process. Get over it.”

- https://medium.com/on-management/ff02cc1483ec

"However, sometimes viral loops are less about the customer’s interests and more about short-term..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:57:34 +0800

“However, sometimes viral loops are less about the customer’s interests and more about short-term greed. When the product maker intentionally tricks users into inviting friends or blasting social networks, they may see growth, but it comes at the expense of goodwill and trust. When people discover they’ve been tricked, they vent their hatred and stop using the product.”

- https://medium.com/behavior-design/fa9d806a284a

"An Alarm Clock that Works. For users who need more motivation to get up in the morning, the Facebook..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:22:55 +0800

“An Alarm Clock that Works. For users who need more motivation to get up in the morning, the Facebook Phone’s “snooze” button will also upload a new Instagram photo, taken during the course of that evening, with our new filter, “Infrared Night Vision.” Our facial-recognition algorithms will optimize the upload for “most unflattering,” ensuring cross-platform humiliation and personal-brand dilution.”

- New Yorker

Mozilla announces new web payment mechanism to debut on Firefox OS | The Verge

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:24:24 +0800

Mozilla announces new web payment mechanism to debut on Firefox OS | The Verge:

Payment should always be a first-class citizen on the web.

"Cleaning is one of the daily rituals of a Zen monk, one of their most important daily practices...."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:29:04 +0800

“Cleaning is one of the daily rituals of a Zen monk, one of their most important daily practices. They sweep or rake, and they try to do nothing else in that moment. The next time you’re doing housework, try concentrating on the housework—on the dust, on the motion, on the sensation. Cooking and cleaning are often seen as boring chores, but actually they are both great ways to practice mindfulness.”

- Buddha Had It Right: Relax The Mind And Productivity Will Follow | Fast Company | Business + Innovation