Top voices on ambition: Paul Graham, Jeff Bezos, Patrick Collison, David Heinemeier Hansson and 11 others.
Our reading of what a group of claims have in common, one level above a korrent: a korrent is our reading of what somebody said, a view is our reading of what several korrents share. The claims are printed under it, so the sentence can be checked against them.
Nobody is filed under a view — claims are. A person is named here because a dated claim of theirs sits under it, and somebody whose claims sit under two views appears under both.
Warren EllisMasud HusainDavid Heinemeier HanssonAlbert ChengJeff Bezos
Lenny RachitskyClaire VoAnish AcharyaTara SeshanSaloni DattaniPatrick CollisonAlexandr Wang
A viewour reading
Their wordsPossibly I was being ambitious, but there's little point in not being ambitious.
Their wordsIf I had thought in those ways, it probably wouldn't have happened. I just didn't think that we should have these boundaries to what you can do.
Their wordsI think that's the other big misconception that some people have about wealth is that they conceive of it as some sort of checkpoint. Like once you've made it, then you can just kick back in leisure as though that was happiness.
Their wordsAnd a thousand experiments by itself, like if you just did that, but you didn't learn, you didn't make an impact, and that's kind of a waste of time, right? The whole point of setting a goal is that you can have conversations about what would need to be true to actually hit that goal.
Their wordsIf we can quantify it all before we even begin, the ambition disappears
Their wordsThat's an inventor's greatest dream, is that their inventions are so successful that they are one day taken for granted. Nobody thinks of Amazon as an invention anymore. Nobody thinks of customer reviews as an invention.
A viewour reading
Their wordswe knew that it was grueling. And you need you need something to drive you through all those obstacles and honestly being dutiful is not enough.
Their wordsThose stories are rare because most of this quality is inborn.
Their wordsit's not that they lack ambition, it's more like they've been trained not to show it. Because when you're young you're often in situations where you're supposed to be obedient. You're not supposed to like go off and do what you want.
A viewour reading
Their wordsThis is especially important now that AI allows us (and forces us) to be a lot more ambitious.
Their wordsI don't think that's the game next year. I don't think that's the game we should be playing for next year. I think next year is the ambition game.
Their wordsI think today we're almost seeing the opposite problem where, you know, an idea that's too small is not something that we want to engage with.
Their wordsYour ambitions are no longer limited by like what you're capable of executing yourself, what you're capable of communicating.
Their words
Their wordsI think we're at a point of divergence when it comes to medical innovation. Our tools are improving rapidly, but our ambitions to use them have fallen behind.
Their wordsSo, I um yeah, I think maybe maybe a better way of saying it is 20 20 years ago that whole lean startup thing was uh was almost the only thing to do because of capital available and you didn't have AI that made, I don't know, spinning up an organization with many different potentialities and capabilities so much easier, whereas now I think you can start these much more aggressive and ambitious things up front.
Their wordsall of a sudden, the scarce resource isn't going to be intelligence or agency. I really think it's going to be vision and ambition.
Their wordsI truly believe these these models are already just incredibly powerful. Like they should they should be so powerful to fuel, you know, um many many points of expansion of GDP growth and I think it's like up to smart people with vision and ambition to make all that happen.
A viewour reading
Filed here becauseFor entrepreneurs, yes; for most people, not needed at all.
Their wordsAnd I will say I've actually changed my mind on that a little bit. I spent quite a lot of time speaking the other book that there are a lot of people who don't actually need those ambitions. And I also-- That's also true. We don't want 8 billion Elons running around the world. Would be rather crazy, I think. But I've come to realize that for entrepreneurs, it's healthy to have suitable chunky goals.
Their wordsBut when they looked at the happiness levels of these people, it was the average person who actually would self-report the highest levels of happiness. So ambition doesn't necessarily equate with happiness, which I think many people would agree with with that.
Their wordsif if we're if we're too ambitious and we're at the outset and too ambitious and visionary about the product we want to build, then we will probably miss product market fit because we won't start at a small enough humble enough place
Their wordsExecution is only as good as the goal and the verification you give it. Ambition without verification is just a wish.
Matched by wording, not yet read into a view. The archive grows on its own, so this is where new claims wait for somebody to read them.
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