Work hard, not in grunt work, but in chasing such opportunities and maximizing exposure to them. This makes living in big cities invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters-you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity.

Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.

Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

...maximize the serendipity around you.

Anything that provides you with very, very stable income, very stable conditions, maybe generally stable, that often, it masks real risks, risks of blow-ups.

Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off.