Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.

I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign. The problem is that...

I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.

My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

I always invest my own money in the companies that I create. I don’t believe in the whole thing of just using other people’s money. I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to ask...

I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can...

I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.

If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do… If you don’t do your chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.

People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton...

It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no...

I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.

Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.

There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.

Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.

The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

The world doesn’t always give what you want, but it often gives you what you need.

You’ll do better work if you’re bored rather than busy.

You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.

You should be too busy to do coffee while keeping an uncluttered calendar.

Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.

That’s the fundamental delusion – that there is something out there that will make you happy forever.

The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations and nobody cares....

I think true happiness comes out of peace. Peace comes out of many things, but it comes from fundamentally understanding yourself.

Now the main source of capital is how many “robots”, programmers, and machines you have working for you. Those are the ultimate force multipliers.

Whatever the geeks are doing in their garage on weekends is what the entire earth will be doing 20 years later as a mainstream thing.

You make your own luck if you stay at it long enough.

The modern struggle – Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising, up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponizing abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games...

You can escape competition through authenticity, when you realize that no one can compete with you on being you. That would have been useless advice pre-internet. Post-internet, you can turn that into a career.

Sing the song that only you can sing, write the book that only you can write, build the product that only you can build… live the life that only you can live.

When you’re healthy you have 10000 needs, but when you’re sick you only have one need.

Most of modern life, all our diseases, are diseases of abundance, not diseases of scarcity.

Mentors won’t make you rich. Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take...

I don’t care how rich you are. I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker. If somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear and how to behave,...

School, politics, sports, and games train us to compete against others. True rewards — wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity — come from ignoring others and improving ourselves.

Knowledge workers train, sprint, rest, and re-assess. Inspiration is perishable – act on it immediately. Be impatient with actions but patient with results.

We waste our time with short term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.

A happy, calm, and peaceful person will make better decisions. So if you want to operate at peak performance, you have to learn how to tame your mind.

Most of our suffering comes from avoidance.

You do not want to compete, you want to be a market of one.

The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself.

Your goal in life is to find out the people who need you the most, to find out the business that needs you the most, to find the project and the art that needs you...

In a billion dollar company, the employees aren’t working any harder than people in a million dollar company. They’re just doing the right things.

Work as hard as you can. Even though what you work on and who you work with are more important.

Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind. Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind. Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the...

Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.