If people disobey, don't ask what is wrong with them, ask what's wrong with their leaders.

The people at the top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

When people reflexively write checks to institutions that have billions of dollars in the bank, they are essentially committing a moral crime. Your money could do good in this world and you're choosing instead to waste it. People have to do a better job of that. You've got to find places where your money's going to do some good and direct your dollars towards that institution.

Performance ought to improve with experience, and pressure is an obstacle that the diligent can overcome.

The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day.

The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story.

Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.