Maxims

Frank Slootman

• Most companies don’t die from starvation; they die from indigestion
• Execution is the strategy
• Culture is what you tolerate
• Focus is saying no to almost everything
• Speed is a feature
• Great companies are run, not discovered
• Clarity drives velocity
• Don’t confuse activity with progress
• The best people want to be on winning teams
• You have to raise the bar continuously
• If you want excellence, you have to insist on it

Richard Zeckhauser

• When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, go to an extreme case
• When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, go to a simple case
• Don’t take refuge in complexity
• When trying to understand a complex real-world situation, think of an everyday analogue
• The world is much more uncertain than you think
• Think probabilistically about the world
• Uncertainty is the friend of the status quo
• Good decisions sometimes have poor outcomes
• Some decisions have a high probability of a bad outcome
• Errors of commission should be weighted the same as errors of omission
• Don’t be limited by the options you have in front of you
• Information is only valuable if it can change your decision
• Long division is the most important tool for policy analysis
• Elasticities are a powerful tool for understanding many important things in life
• Heterogeneity in the population explains many phenomena
• Capitalize on complementarities
• Strive hard not to be envious – see your friend’s success as your gain
• Eliminate regret
• Make pleasure-enhancing decisions long in advance, to increase the utility of anticipation.