The Anthology of Balaji: A Guide to Technology, Truth, and Building the Future

Becoming a full-stack creator is also important. Social media is about to become far, far, far more lucrative and monetizable than people realize. They think it’s over or stagnant. But we’re just getting started. Many who want to build billion-dollar companies will have to also build million-person media followings.

As jobs become more automated, investing may become the most common “job” of the twenty-first century. The 1800s was about farming, and the 1900s was about manufacturing. This transition toward everyone investing may already be quietly underway.

We all like to think we’d have put $25k into Facebook in ’04. In hindsight, we all believe we’d take the risk and get in early. Yet, another risky early opportunity is in front of you today. Now digital currency as a category removes excuses for not trying.

Higher productivity also means quicker failures. Quicker failure means you can create more trials. More trials means you have more chances to find your comparative advantage. Iterate.

Finding up-and-coming people is a very important component of hiring. Technology executive and investor Keith Rabois has a good saying: “Hire geniuses no one knows yet.” My version is: “Hire people who are hungry and can teach us something.”

The 6 Ps are a useful checklist. Product—What are you selling? Person—To whom? Purpose—Why are they buying it? Pricing—At what price? Priority—Why now? Prestige—And why from you?

Managing A founder’s role changes a lot as a company grows. An analogy from the sports world: 1–10 employees: player 10–100 employees: coach 100–1,000 employees: general manager 1,000+ employees: commissioner

Taking some time off Twitter can be helpful, which I do every once in a while. I took almost four months off Twitter to complete all the final details in my book and get it shipped. Win off Twitter to win on Twitter. Pretty much anything you want, you cannot actually win on Twitter itself. You have to win off Twitter and announce on Twitter.

Marc Andreessen’s anti to-do list is also good: write down what you just did, and then cross it off. Even if you get off track, this gives you a sense of what you were working on and your progress.