Average people push great people out of a company.

If you can't sell your product, it's not a product-it's a hobby.

There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you're successful.

Art is an adventure that never seems to end.

If everybody has a voice, then you end up with something average.

Blogging is great, and I read blogs all day long. However, my goal is really to have a deep, meaningful discussion with people. For some reason, I'm able to accomplish this best via email.

Excellence is everything today, and most people aren't excellent. If you're not excellent - like truly excellent at what you do - you're toast.

Starting is easy. Finishing is hard.

You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there. You have to be humble as you execute but visionary and gigantic in terms of your aspiration. In the internet industry it's not about grand innovation, it's about a lot of little innovations: every day, every week, every month, making something a little bit better.

You should know what makes one photo brilliant and another. Why one illustration is instructive and another is banal. Why one blurb is clever and another is trying too hard. Why one video is brilliantly entertaining and another is cheesy. Bottom line: you should want to do great work with a great team-no matter the cost.

When you come from nothing, you're basically just trying to get escape velocity, which means you and your family don't have to worry about being broke and that's all I ever cared about.