Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.

For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.

I encourage active skepticism - when people are being skeptical because they're trying to identify the best course of action. They're trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people.

I open each class with an explanation of the singular importance of being a "dealmaker." The manifesto of the dealmaker is simple: Reality is negotiable.

I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.

Companies that start by redesigning the economics of an industry often finish by redesigning the whole industry-and owning it.

But if it's tolerable mediocrity, and you're like, 'Well, you know it could be worse. At least I'm getting paid.' Then you wind up in a job that is slowly killing your soul and you're allowing that to happen. Comfort can be a very, very dangerous thing.