I first came across Katharine Graham in Will Thorndike’s book ‘The Outliers’ about the best capital allocators. Other great capital allocators include Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. When done right, capital allocation creates enormous value like nothing else does. When she took over the Post, Katherine Graham had not worked…

There is a belief that success revolves around having great ideas. Of course, everyone knows that execution matters too, but this is often a secondary consideration. This is a complete myth. Starting businesses, again and again, has taught me that the execution IS the idea. …

For many years, I felt like I had no control over my emotions. I was extremely reactive to disagreements and arguments. Forgiving and forgetting do come relatively easily to me, but in the heat of the moment, it can be extremely hard for me to think clearly. …

There are 2 fundamental types of decisions — 100-hour decisions and 5-minute decisions. If you’re not actively categorizing your decision-making into these buckets, chances are that you’re treating your decisions incorrectly. When given the chance, the brain really only wants to spend 1–10 conscious hours thinking about complicated problems. 100…

One of my pet peeves is when people say ‘we do it this way because that’s the way it’s always been done’. Apart from traditional recipes, I don’t think it makes sense to approach problems this way. Instead, I try to rely on first-principles thinking, which I first learned about…

Projects don’t need to take a lifetime. The faster you can launch, the faster you can see if there’s product market fit or not, and move on or double down as necessary. Here are some of my favorite examples (from @patrickc) of teams that moved fast on projects that could…

If you’re anything like me, this will have happened to you many times in your life. You’ve just sat down to try to sort through a bunch of options — you’ve come up with over 20 — but having to choose one out of 20 suddenly seems impossible. …

I love to debate — but I used to think that the only point was to convince or be convinced. To my chagrin, I thought I was advocating for ‘open discussion’ but more recently have realized that my need to convince the other side often leads to extremely heated and…

Apeirogon by Colum McCann — one of my favorite reads in 2021 a novel based on the unlikely real-life friendship between an Israeli father and a Palestinian father who both lost their daughters at a young age. …