Find people who've been there

Ali on spotting talent before it's obvious“It's mostly about being intentional with the pattern matching you already have from a lifetime of interacting with people, rather than suspending judgment the way polite society trains us to do.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Laurie on making a strong start in the first ninety days“Listen, the first 90 days is where careers get made or stalled, and most people waste it being polite and waiting to be told what to do.”

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.”

Michael on which technology bets to make early$113.5B FY26 revenue record and youngest Fortune 500 CEO ever.

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.”

Peter on taking back your evenings from your phone“I stopped checking messages after 6 pm and told my team to call twice if it was truly urgent; nothing broke, and I got ten hours back every week.”

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.”

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.”

Keith on spotting founders nobody has noticed yet“Stop looking at résumés the way Google does.”

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.”

Suzanne on what happens behind closed doors in a layoff“I've personally been involved in laying off well over a thousand people, and the part no one talks about is how fast the dignity gets stripped away: one minute you're trusted, the next a manager you've never met is reading you a script while someone cuts your computer access.”

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.”

Kirsten on how AI changes what consumers buyTime 100 Most Influential People and dollar Shave Club sold for $1B.

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.”

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.”

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

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.”