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.”

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.”

Hal on keeping a morning routine alive after a bad night“I learned the hard way that my routine survives only when I make it so small that a bad day can't break it, like doing the 6-minute Miracle Morning instead of an hour.”

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.”

Nir on the science of living longer“To delay the biology of aging, we don't prevent just one disease, we prevent many of them. We used to think each age-related disease was separate, but they share common roots. Longevity becomes a side effect of staying healthy longer.”

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

Jason on when to keep fighting and when to wind down“I’ve seen this movie too many times: four months of runway with flat sales usually means the founder never found a repeatable motion, not that the market said no.”

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.”

Stanley on finding initial traction“Your first customers don’t need a scalable solution. They need their problem solved. Do it manually until you understand what’s worth building...”

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.”

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.”

Moses on making it to the top when you started with nothing“I had love for the game, parents who kept me grounded, and a city that taught me how to compete. What kept me going was consistency and curiosity. You control what you can control, stack good days, and let the game reward you when it's time.”

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

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

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.”

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.”

Tim on picking investors for a first raise“Start with angels and seed funds who actually write checks at the idea stage, because most VCs won't touch you until you have traction or a warm intro.”

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

Julian on using a system to curb phone distractions“I don't try to restart at full speed; I drop back to the mínimo viable version of each habit until the momentum returns, because a 20-minute workout and one focused block on the side project beats another day of zero.”