Something Confusing about "Hard": It's tempting to think that if it's hard, then it's valuable. Most valuable things are hard. Most hard things are completely useless -- (picture of someone smashing their head through concrete blocks kung-fu style). Hard DOES NOT EQUATE TO BEING valuable. Remember Friendster back in the day? You'd sign in, invite friends, have 25 friends, go to their profile, and then it'd show how you were connected to each one. That's an impressive [some geeky CS jargon] Cone traversal of a tree - 100 million string comparisons per page -- it won't scale. Used to take a minute per page to load, and Friendster died a painful death. MySpace -- not interested in solving problems They use the shortcut of "Miss Fitzpatrick is in your extended network" (i.e. even when you're not even signed up for MySpace) They didn't solve the hard problem. But they make the more relevant assumption that you want to be connected to hot women. [LOL] Shows Alexa graph showing that in early 2005 Myspace took off, and quickly bypassed Friendster and never looked back. -- Max Levchin, PayPal founder, Talk at StartupSchool2007

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

The most damaging phrase in the language is, It's always been done that way. -- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

Measure everything you can about the product, and you'll start seeing patterns. -- Max Levchin, PayPal founder, Talk at StartupSchool2007

Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn't just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There's no company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having people become more observant. -- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams. -- Mary Ellen Kelly

Do one thing every day that scares you. ~Anonymous

You can’t fall if you don’t climb. But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown

Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain. ~Anonymous

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. ~Ray Goforth