Find people who've been there

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.”

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.”

Nick on metabolic health, nutrition, and brain healthHarvard MD, Oxford PhD, Dartmouth valedictorian and #2 Science Bestseller on Substack.

Michael on building for the long term“You can’t build your future around protecting your past. Stay close to customers, keep learning, and be willing to reinvent the business.”

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.”

Guillermo on building Vercel and Next.js“I want people to write these verification loops because it's gonna give me conviction in the product that it'll deliver to my customer.”

John on Building a differentiated business“When you can’t outspend your competitor, give people a reason to choose you that money alone can’t buy.”

Jim on learning faster and remembering more“Before you decide you’re bad at learning, look at how you’re learning. Give yourself a method, remove distractions, and practice recalling what matters.”

Michael on which technology bets to make earlyPledged $6.25B for 25M children and $113.5B FY26 revenue record.

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

Spencer on life inside an NBA organization“I used to think pushing past your body meant toughness, but the league taught me that the hardest skill is staying on the floor.”

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.”

Joshua on hiring an operations manager before you feel ready“Hiring my first employee scared me because it felt like a massive expense, but I learned your first hire should be operations, not another you.”

Lenny on breaking into product management“A few paths actually work. The safest is transitioning internally, partnering closely with a PM until you can make the case. The second is joining an early-stage startup where everyone does everything. Regardless of path, become the person who deeply understands the customer and can translate that into product insight.”

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.”

Soleio on designing products people love“Good design starts with knowing what matters. If your team can’t agree on the problem, polishing the interface won’t fix it.”

Jessi on deciding what comes first when everything is urgent“I learned in hospice that when everything feels urgent, the first thing is to steady my own nervous system so I can see what is actually life-or-death and what only feels that way.”

Lin on scaling computeRaised $300M+, incl. $250M Series C and led PyTorch team at Meta.

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.”