Find people who've been there

Nir on why we reach for our phones without deciding to“Your brain has learned that opening social media relieves a quick pang of boredom, loneliness, or uncertainty, so it now cues the habit before you consciously decide.”

Lorraine on getting noticed for your work“Doing great work doesn’t guarantee recognition. Make your impact easy to explain so people can advocate for you when you’re not in the room.”

Guillermo on building Vercel and Next.js“The best things we've done for our brand is the things that we did without thinking we're working on our brand.”

Alastair on handling a teammate who undermines you in meetings“I would name the pattern in private first: I noticed you agreed in the room, then raised concerns afterwards. If you disagree, raise it in the meeting so we can deal with it straight away.”

Pedro on where machine learning is headed“The same basic paradigms have been used since the 1950s. At the end of the day, we’re going to need some new ideas.”

Alisa on growing from founder to CEO“The habits that made you a successful founder can become your biggest obstacles as CEO. Growth starts with seeing how others experience you.”

Kit on cutting a huge to-do list to three big things“I used to write forty-item lists and call it ambition, but it was just avoidance dressed as hard work.”

Céline on protecting your health in a noisy information world“I protect my health the same way I protect my patients: by curating my information diet the way I curate my food. I go to the source, I follow people who've been right before and correct themselves when the evidence changes, and I stay open to changing my mind. Certainty that cannot bend is not strength; it is a vulnerability.”

Vanessa on sexual expectations couples never say out loud“I don't believe in a universal normal for any stage, but I do think it's completely natural for that early honeymoon frequency to taper off after about a year.”

Vinod on which jobs AI will replaceLed KV's first OpenAI investment and juniper Networks: 2,500x return.

Aaron on fixing outbound when replies dry upPredictable Revenue, half a million copies and salesforce outbound system added $100M recurring revenue.

Brian on scaling a company“The leadership style that gets you to ten employees won’t get you to a thousand. Your company can’t evolve unless you do.”

Jim on enjoying competition when teammates are more intense“I stopped enjoying baseball when I was chasing what everyone else valued, and I found my game again only when I started competing to raise my own level, not to beat theirs.”

Kathryn on negotiating higher pay and getting it“I watched my own mom retire dramatically underpaid after 30 years, so I teach women to frame the ask around what they’ve already delivered and what they’ll deliver next, not just what they need.”

Deena on raising venture money as an underestimated founder“Do your homework on who you're pitching. Most founders spray and pray, but that wastes everyone's time. And bring your full self to the conversation. The intersectional, the immigrant, the nontraditional founder, those backgrounds are not weaknesses. They're edges. The data shows diverse founding teams build better businesses. But you have to own it.”

Nyree on why you crash at 2 p.m. after a full night's sleep“Eight hours in bed means nothing if your brain never entered deep restorative sleep, and by 2 p.m. your adenosine tank is still full from incomplete overnight clearance.”

Jeffrey on why treating symptoms is the wrong place to start“Symptoms are late signals, not first causes. In chronic illness the biology starts drifting years before a diagnosis. If you start at the symptom, you are downstream. You may mute the alarm without finding the fire. The body is a network, so ask what shifted in the person's story and physiology that made the symptom possible, then address that.”

Matthew on finding the right partner“You want to be happy enough that the right thing doesn’t become your everything.”

Andrej on how far we are from AGILed Tesla Autopilot computer vision team and founding member of OpenAI.

Sam on scaling a sales team fastPartner at Founders Fund and brex CRO, sub-$1M to 9-figure ARR.