David Heinemeier Hansson Quotes

It took me some twenty-plus years to really learn how to program.

If you're not working on your best idea right now, you're doing it wrong.

Fear is ugly because it makes you irrational. Fear makes you jump to conclusions. Fear makes you reactionary.

There's nothing that will bring realism into your world as quickly as realizing that you're out of cash.

Workaholics don't actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just mean they're wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.

When sparks fly, some truly great ideas come to light.

Planning is not just guessing, it is harmful guessing, because it is a waste of time. All the time you spend doing your five year plan you can use to worry about tomorrow.

Most software has a tiny essence that justifies its existence, everything after that is wants and desires mistaken for needs and necessities.

A fool and his money will soon be departed applies equally to venture capitalists as it does to everyone else.

If you can't figure out how to make money on three billion in revenue, when exactly will the profit magic be found? Ten billion? Fifty billion?

You're better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole.

Nobody is an overnight success. Most overnight successes you see have been working at it for ten years.

One pattern to help yourself fight the mad dash for the mirage of being done is to think of a good day’s work. Look at the progress of the day towards the end and ask yourself: 'Have I done a good day’s work?'

Before you know it, you're half-way done with your idea and you've accidentally learned how to do it too. In short, you start with little bit of something real and make it tick. Then you make it tock.

Facebook has been around for seven years. It has 500 million users. If you can't figure out how to make money off half a billion people in seven years, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're unlikely to ever do.