Words to Start the Week (May 19, 2025)
Nuggets from past notes
“The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.”
“The builders of visionary companies were highly persistent, living to the motto: Never, never, never give up. But what to persist with? The company. Be prepared to kill, revise, or evolve an idea… but never give up on the company. If you equate the success of your company with the success of a specific idea - as many businesspeople do - then you’re more likely to give up on the company if that idea fails; and if that idea happens to succeed, you’re more likely to have an emotional love affair with that idea and stick with it too long, when the company should be moving vigorously on to other things. But if you see the ultimate creation as the company, not the execution of a specific idea… then you can persist beyond any specific idea - good or bad - and move toward becoming and enduring great institution.”
“An evolution of an idea always starts off as a thought, and then tentative discussions happen. These thoughts are precarious. A small team of people that really trust each other is fundamentally important in developing these thoughts. If people care, they listen, and thoughts get developed.”
- Jony Ive (on the importance of having a trusted group when sharing thoughts)
“When you innovate, there will be unintended consequences. Some of the products I was involved with have those consequences. It weighs on me heavily.”
- Jony Ive (on the negative spillover effects of the iPhone)
“In general, steady progress is the cumulative result of great bursts of progress in particular areas, which often create new technologies that take decades to roll out and perfect. Financial bubbles, technological developments, and even the rise of governments and religions demonstrate that social systems are inherently reflexive - that predications, like self fulfilling prophecies, can affect or create the reality they try to predict.”