Topic
Decision Making
Every resource in the archive tagged with decision making.
55 resources
Letter2003 Letter to Shareholders
Jeff Bezos
Apr 2004 · 11 min read
Why long-term thinking is the mark of true ownership — owners are different from tenants.
Letter1997 Letter to Shareholders
Jeff Bezos
Mar 1998 · 7 min read
It's always Day 1: long-term market leadership matters more than quarterly profits or Wall Street approval.
EssayGuide to Career Planning, Part 1: Opportunity
Marc Andreessen
Sep 2007 · 11 min read
Why planning a career is pointless — and why seizing opportunities beats following a plan.
VideoSteve Jobs on Focus
Various Founders
Sep 1997 · 3 min
Steve Jobs's philosophy on the power of saying no and eliminating distractions to achieve excellence.
EssayMaking Yourself a CEO
Ben Horowitz
Oct 2012 · 12 min read
Being a CEO requires mastering unnatural skills, especially the foundational practice of giving honest, authentic feedback.
EssayManaging Your Own Psychology
Ben Horowitz
Mar 2011 · 16 min read
Managing your own psychology is the hardest CEO skill, harder than organizational design or hiring, because everything wrong is your fault.
EssayHow Things Get Done
Sam Altman
3 min read
Things get done through focus on two or three priorities and strong personal relationships.
EssayStartup Advice, Briefly
Sam Altman
4 min read
Start with a project, not a company, so you can find something great to work on without premature commitment.
EssayAdvice for Ambitious 19 Year Olds
Sam Altman
4 min read
Build something real while staying around smart people, regardless of whether you choose college, a company, or a startup.
EssayThe Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
Paul Graham
Apr 2006 · 21 min read
The counterintuitive lessons startups repeatedly fail to learn: release early, keep improving, make users happy, and fear the right threats.
EssayWhen to Do What You Love
Paul Graham
Sep 2024 · 7 min read
When to pursue work you love versus work that pays well depends on your ambitions and the actual odds of success in your chosen field.
VideoJony Ive recounts the time Steve Jobs called him vain
Jony Ive
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
Caring what people think of you masks vanity; the work matters more than your reputation.
VideoEric Schmidt on why most companies get strategy wrong
Eric Schmidt
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
Why strategy should start from what the world will look like in five years, not from your products.
VideoMark Zuckerberg: “You can’t 80/20 everything”
Mark Zuckerberg
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
Why some problems demand 100% of the work — you can't 80/20 everything.
VideoKeith Rabois on how to identify great talent
Keith Rabois
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
How to spot great talent: expand each person's responsibilities until they break.
VideoSam Altman explains how he decides to invest in a startup after 10 minutes
Sam Altman
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
What a 10-minute YC interview reveals about a founder's potential.
VideoMarc Andreessen on the 5 personality traits of an innovator
Marc Andreessen
Mar 2026 · 1 min read
The five personality traits that separate true innovators from everyone else.
EssayHiring Executives
Ben Horowitz
Oct 2010 · 15 min read
How to hire executives for roles you've never done yourself.
EssayWhy We Prefer Founding CEOs
Ben Horowitz
Apr 2010 · 16 min read
Founding CEOs outperform professional CEOs at running technology companies because they innovate better.
EssayThe Case for the Fat Startup
Ben Horowitz
Mar 2010 · 13 min read
Running lean is a tactic, not an end; sometimes heavy investment in R&D and product wins the market despite cash constraints.
EssayHow to Minimize Politics in Your Company
Ben Horowitz
Aug 2010 · 15 min read
Even self-proclaimed apolitical CEOs encourage political behavior in their companies.
EssayLead Bullets
Ben Horowitz
Nov 2011 · 7 min read
When facing an existential threat, stop looking for clever shortcuts and do the hard work to fix your core problem.
EssayThe Struggle
Ben Horowitz
Jun 2012 · 10 min read
The Struggle is when you know you’re in over your head, but you can’t be replaced.
EssayPeacetime CEO / Wartime CEO
Ben Horowitz
Apr 2011 · 11 min read
In peacetime, it’s all about growth.
Letter2020 Letter to Shareholders — Farewell
Jeff Bezos
Apr 2021 · 25 min read
Real value creation is measured by wealth generated for all stakeholders—not just shareholders—and innovation is the root of it all.
Letter2018 Letter to Shareholders
Jeff Bezos
Apr 2019 · 18 min read
Bezos arguing that risk-taking, not just revenue, must scale with company size.
Letter2016 Letter to Shareholders — Day 1
Jeff Bezos
Apr 2017 · 8 min read
Four practices to prevent organizational stagnation: customer obsession, rejecting proxies, embracing trends, and fast decision-making.
EssayFast
Patrick Collison
7 min read
Teams once built cities and planes in months; today the same projects take decades due to regulatory complexity.
EssayQuestions
Patrick Collison
16 min read
Why certain sectors see costs explode while others plummet, and whether progress itself has fundamentally slowed.
EssayHappiness Is a Skill
Naval Ravikant
Mar 2021 · 23 min read
Happiness is a skill you can develop by understanding desire and recognizing what's within your control.
EssayJudgment
Naval Ravikant
Apr 2019 · 6 min read
Why judgment becomes your most important asset once you have leverage.
EssayHow to Get Rich (Without Getting Lucky)
Naval Ravikant
Dec 2019 · 193 min read
Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep; money is how you transfer it; status is a zero-sum game you should avoid.
EssayUpside Risk
Sam Altman
2 min read
Power law returns mean angel investors should focus on upside risk—missing great deals—not downside protection.
EssaySuper-Successful Companies
Sam Altman
5 min read
The defining traits of founders whose startups become extremely successful.
EssayValue Is Created By Doing
Sam Altman
3 min read
Most work that feels busy—meetings, networking, talking—doesn't create value; only execution does.
EssayWhat I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Sam Altman
1 min read
How to start and scale ambitious things: recruiting, focus, speed, conviction, and fighting bureaucracy.
EssayHow To Invest In Startups
Sam Altman
9 min read
How to succeed as a startup investor by accessing deals, picking great founders, and getting them to choose you.
EssayResearchers and Founders
Sam Altman
1 min read
The common traits that distinguish the best researchers and founders, from problem taste to persistence to an action bias.
EssayProductivity
Sam Altman
10 min read
Choosing what to work on matters more than how fast you work, and small gains compound into massive results over time.
EssayLuck and the Entrepreneur
Marc Andreessen
Aug 2007 · 8 min read
Four distinct kinds of luck shape entrepreneurial success, each requiring different personality traits and behaviors to activate.
EssayAge and the Entrepreneur
Marc Andreessen
Aug 2007 · 11 min read
Andreessen's gloss on Simonton's finding that the 'quality ratio' of hits to misses stays roughly constant throughout a creative career.
EssayHow to Hire the Best People You've Ever Worked With
Marc Andreessen
Jun 2007 · 12 min read
Drive, curiosity, and ethics matter more than raw intelligence when hiring the best people for a startup.
EssayGuide to Startups, Part 8: Hiring, managing, promoting, and firing executives
Marc Andreessen
Aug 2007 · 16 min read
How to hire, manage, promote, and fire executives at a startup, with specific guidelines for each stage.
EssayGuide to Startups, Part 7: Why a startup's initial business plan matters
Marc Andreessen
Jul 2007 · 6 min read
Andreessen's punchline: the inventor of the phonograph initially filed it under 'speaking telegraph' and missed its true market for months.
EssayGuide to Startups, Part 5: The Moby Dick theory of big companies
Marc Andreessen
Jun 2007 · 10 min read
How to navigate unpredictable dealings with large companies as a startup founder.
EssayGuide to Startups, Part 4: The only thing that matters
Marc Andreessen
Jun 2007 · 10 min read
Rachleff's Corollary of Startup Success, as formulated by Andreessen.
EssayBefore the Startup
Paul Graham
Oct 2014 · 20 min read
Why your instincts about startups will mislead you, and what to trust instead.
EssayThe Top Idea in Your Mind
Paul Graham
Sep 2022 · 10 min read
Founders misjudge which problems matter most, but rapid focus on the vital few—measured weekly—accelerates everything.
EssayLife Is Short
Paul Graham
Jan 2016 · 7 min read
Life is genuinely short, and the practical response is to eliminate bullshit and do things that matter.
EssayHow to Do What You Love
Paul Graham
Jan 2006 · 21 min read
Most people are taught that work must be unpleasant, but the most successful ones have learned to do what they genuinely love.
EssayBlack Swan Farming
Paul Graham
Sep 2012 · 9 min read
Startup investing concentrates returns in a few massive winners, which look like bad ideas until they succeed.
EssayThe Risk of Discovery
Paul Graham
Jan 2017 · 1 min read
Smart people take risks that look crazy only in hindsight; Newton's work in alchemy and theology were reasonable bets in his time.
EssayHow to Disagree
Paul Graham
Mar 2008 · 7 min read
Disagreement quality follows a hierarchy from name-calling to refuting central points, and moving up makes you less mean and more effective.
EssayFounder Mode
Paul Graham
Sep 2024 · 5 min read
Founder mode—how founders run companies—works better than manager mode, the standard advice they're given.
EssayGuide to Startups, Part 2: When the VCs say no
Marc Andreessen
Jun 2007 · 11 min read
How to reduce layers of risk in your startup plan after VCs say no.