It’s impossible to overstate the unearned privilege I

“When I was sixteen, I had just two things on my mind - girls and cars. I wasn't very good with girls. So I thought about cars. I thought about girls, too, but I had more luck with cars. Let's say that when I turned sixteen, a genie had appeared to me. And that genie said, 'Warren, I'm going to give you the car of your choice. It'll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tied on it. Brand-new. And it's all yours.' Having heard all the genie stories, I would say, 'What's the catch?' And the genie would answer, 'There's only one catch. This is the last car you're ever going to ge tin your life. So it's got to last a lifetime.' If that had happened, I would have picked out that car. But, can you imagine, knowing it had to last a lifetime, what I would do with it? I would read the manual about five times. I would always keep it garaged. If there was the least little dent or scratch, I'd have it fixed right away because I wouldn't want it rusting. I would baby that car, because it would have to last a lifetime. That's exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body. You only get one mind and one body. And it's got to last a lifetime. Now, it's very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don't take care of that mind and that body, they'll be a wreck forty years later, just life the car would be. It's what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now.” ― Warren Buffett

“Earlier, I mentioned a related technology called direct air capture. It involves exactly what the name implies: capturing carbon directly from the air. DAC is more flexible than point capture, because you can do it anywhere. And in all likelihood, it’ll be a crucial part of getting to zero; one study by the National Academy of Sciences found that we’ll need to be removing about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year by mid-century and about 20 billion by the end of the century.” ― Bill Gates

“I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘OK, I’m looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.’ And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day.” ― Jeff Bezos

“[Bill] Gates said he connected with [Eddy] Izzard even though it would appear they have nothing in common — but that might be the point the author is trying to communicate. "I've recently discovered that I have a lot in common with a funny, dyslexic, transgender actor, comedian, escape artist, unicyclist, ultra-marathoner, and pilot from Great Britain. Except all of the above," Gates wrote. "We're all cut from the same cloth. In his words, 'We are all totally different, but we are all exactly the same” ― Bill Gates

In general, we're a social network. I prefer that because I think it is focused on the people part of it - as opposed to some people call it social media, which I think focuses more on the content. ― Mark Zuckerberg

This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people. ― Mark Zuckerberg

“If humanity is to become multi-planetary, the fundamental breakthrough that needs to occur in rocketry is a rapidly and completely reusable rocket … achieving it would be on a par with what the Wright brothers did. It’s the fundamental thing that’s necessary for humanity to become a space-faring civilization. America would never have been colonized if ships weren’t reusable.” ― Elon Musk

“I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable.” ― Warren Buffett

It's really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there. ― Mark Zuckerberg

“There’s one last way we can cut down on emissions from the food we eat: by wasting less of it. In Europe, industrialized parts of Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, more than 20 percent of food is simply thrown away, allowed to rot, or otherwise wasted. In the United States, it’s 40 percent. That’s bad for people who don’t have enough to eat, bad for the economy, and bad for the climate. When wasted food rots, it produces enough methane to cause as much warming as 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year.” ― Bill Gates

“One of the things that I hope will distinguish Amazon.com is that we continue to be a company that defies easy analogy. This requires a lot of innovation, and innovation requires a lot of random walk.” ― Jeff Bezos

“But Bezos had a rule, which was to use his heart and his intuition as well as empirical data in making a big decision. “There has to be risk taking. You have to have instinct. All the good decisions have to be made that way,” ― Jeff Bezos

“Until July, Amazon.com had been primarily built on two pillars of customer experience: selection and convenience. In July, as I already discussed, we added a third customer experience pillar: relentlessly lowering prices. You should know that our commitment to the first two pillars remains as strong as ever.” ― Jeff Bezos

“Most people,” he said, “think that if they work hard, they should be able to master a handstand in about two weeks. The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.” ― Jeff Bezos

“Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I accomplish my 10-year plan in 6 months? You will probably fail but you will be a lot further ahead of the person who simply accepted it was going to take 10 years.” ― Elon Musk

“When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength--400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well, it's really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore after that.” ― Elon Musk

“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” ― Warren Buffett

“So smile when you read a headline that says “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to “Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”)” ― Warren Buffett

“There is no tougher job in corporate America than running an airline: Despite the huge amounts of equity capital that have been injected into it, the industry, in aggregate, has posted a net loss since its birth after Kitty Hawk. Airline managers need brains, guts, and experience—and” ― Warren Buffett

Facebook is inherently viral. There are lots of sites that include a contact importer, and for lots of them it doesn't really make sense. For Facebook it fits so well. It wasn't until a few years in that we started building some tools that made it easier to import friends to the site. That was a huge thing that spiked growth. ― Mark Zuckerberg