Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've definitely sold some Twitter shares. I don't own as many as I used to, because I'm not an idiot, but I own more than I should because I'm an idiot.
The United States... is the greatest nation on Earth, and I believe there are things that make us special - and one is this grand democratic experiment.
Uber is a better company with better math, better predictive supply, better brand, lower pickup times, higher quality of service. They'll absolutely win.
I've yet to see an example of somebody standing up to Donald Trump and suggesting policy initiatives and him embracing them yet. It's not happening at scale.
One of the things that struck me is how authentic 'Shark Tank' is. I don't know how more real it can be. You have no prior knowledge about the entrepreneurs.
Effective storytelling is the key to getting users to understand and adopt your product as well as imperative to recruiting team members and future investors.
I'm good at what I do and still improving as I learn from mentors, founders, partners, friends, family, strangers, my own investors, and the experience itself.
Once my ears were open to hearing mentions of 'Shark Tank', I was surprised by how many people in our world, even in our industry, tech and finance, loved the show.
Live Twitter can be built right into the main Twitter app, but it should certainly have its own tab so we can concentrate on the live experience free of distraction.
The Sharks step right on each other's questions, and if I ever did that in Silicon Valley, I would be considered a pariah. I literally had to learn how to interrupt.
One of my rules for investing is, I don't invest in a deal where I don't think I have an unfair advantage and where I don't think I can personally impact the outcome.
I'll miss working with Mark, and all of the other Sharks. Each of them has been incredibly generous and warm to me, and I am proud of all the episodes we made together.
I've learned that it's often the less obvious, yet pervasive and questionable, everyday behaviors of men in our industry that collectively make it inhospitable for women.
I want broadband to grow, more mobile devices available, particularly in underprivileged communities. I want STEM education to go ahead and fund the next generation of engineers.
I believe there is no natural ceiling on the revenue Twitter can generate. I also believe that Twitter's reach can become more pervasive and its impact on the world more meaningful.
If Twitter genuinely wants users to buy things at scale, they have to give us a chance to consider the offers and make a decision in a matter of minutes/hours/days, not just seconds.
I think the institutions, principles, norms, and traditions that make the United States of America genuinely exceptional are at serious risk. It has been hard to think about anything else.
One of the things that technology has is a direct relationship with its users. We talk about newspapers. But the biggest newspapers in the world right now are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram.
When I posted the 8,500 words on what Twitter should be, I wanted to make clear this wasn't a vision statement for the future. What was so frustrating about it is that's what it should've been already.
I succeeded at venture capital because, for years, I rarely thought about or spent time on anything else. Anything less than that unmitigated full commitment leaves me feeling frustrated and ineffective.
Funny enough, the person who is most bummed out to hear I won't be back is Mark Cuban. Despite what you might surmise from on screen, he and I are actually good friends - just really competitive good friends.
All broadcasts on Periscope need to be archived for playback permanently, unless the broadcaster chooses to delete the recording. So many treasured moments have been shared on Periscope only to vanish a day later.
The better I get at investing in and helping companies, the result is more founders who are excited to work with me and more of my wonderful limited partners insisting I take piles of their loot to keep it all going.
In social settings, under the guise of joking, being collegial, flirting, or having a good time, I undoubtedly caused some women to question themselves, retreat, feel alone, and worry they can't be their authentic selves.
I think our election proved to us that 'billionaire' is an incredibly magical word in our language in that people just defer to it. Donald Trump is not a billionaire, but he knew it was vital for him to be perceived as one.
Silicon Valley today is populated mostly by people who would consider themselves winners of the traditional race. This causes the exclusion of the voices that are vital to a round, robust society. It's beyond gentrification.
I had a blast. 'Shark Tank' embodies the American Dream. If you watch the show at home, you find yourself constantly hollering at the Sharks. Being able to sit next to them and call them out in real time was quite a privilege.
If Trump publicly commits to embrace science, stops threatening censorship of the Internet, rejects fake news and denounces hate against our diverse employees, only then it would make sense for tech leaders to visit Trump Tower.
American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They've rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.
There are two reasons to pursue diversity and inclusion. One, because you believe one group has benefitted from hundreds of years of discrimination, or two, maybe you don't like that women make 73 cents on the dollar compared to men.
I have learned a ton about inventory, co-packing, wholesaling, end caps. All these concepts are easy to breeze by in what I do for a living or assume that there is a marketing manager or specialist in one of our companies that handles that.
I really do see the sharks evolving their perspective. In the early days of the show, if you brough them an app, they would've turned their noses up. But now they know how indispensable those apps are, even to their own traditional businesses.
There I was - 20 years old, living in Ireland, and I'd never heard the word 'venture capitalist.' But I'd said that I wanted a job that involved a lot of negotiation, a lot of yelling at people on the phone, and for it to be high-risk, high-reward.
Work at a place like Google for awhile: if you do an interview and you say all the right things, no one really cares. But the day you say the wrong sentence, it's attributed to 'Senior Google Executive,' and the stock moves, and everybody hates you.
I wasn't put on the Earth only to be an investor. That wasn't my only thing in life. The problem is that as you get good at something and you keep getting better at something, more and more people just know you as that, and they have you in that box.
A great idea can't succeed without a great operator. But rarely can a great operator squeak by with a bad idea. So, as pithy as it sounds to say 'It's all about the people,' I only invest when I think I have found the right team for the right business.
They are desperate for surrogates to get behind Trump, and they can't find anyone who has actually had genuine success who is willing to stand behind him. That is because he is all smoke and mirrors. We know he doesn't have all the money he claims he has.
The idea that there is a meritocracy where anyone from any background really might have the social and economic mobility to rise to the top in Silicon Valley, those are antithetical to a lot of the principles that the Trump administration apparently stands for.
I find talented, driven, boundlessly ambitious people and help them solve problems that will hopefully improve the lives of millions. Sometimes this means investing in startup founders. Other times, it involves helping organize and fundraise for charity or politics.
I'm also launching a podcast. Because, I mean, the world desperately needs another podcast, am I right? Not to be a tease, but the format is different from anything else I've seen out there, and the subject matter is hopefully boundless, eye-opening, and a little cathartic.
When I was 20 years old, I was living in Ireland, going to school in Cork. There was this girl in my film class that I was kind of flirting with. We had this notebook that we passed back and forth. We would write 10 questions and then pass it back while we were supposedly paying attention.
Uber has an information advantage, a computational advantage. There's massive structural advantages to the player who's smartest about how to deploy cars, where to deploy cars, how to adjust pricing dynamics, how to ensure supply of drivers - the party that understands best the behavior of riders.
The day after Donald Trump was elected, Chinese business leaders, including the heads of Baidu, stood up and gave a speech saying, 'Come to China and build your company now.' The cognitive dissonance of that was amazing for some of us to think we might be losing our leadership role in building companies.
I spent a lot of time learning how to define myself internally rather than externally. I learned how to care less about external validation. I think that's given me a renewed confidence in speaking out loud. I kind of don't care what people think about me. I feel a lot more confident in saying what I believe.
I have one of the self-driving Teslas; it drives itself periodically. It's a marvel of science, but it's still frightening. I think we've got a while before regulators and the general public wrap their heads around the path that will lead to the ubiquity of driverless cars. There's no doubt Uber will be a leader in that space.
'Shark Tank' has been a sincere joy. As our traditional venture-backed companies get bigger, the investing side tends to get more political and complicated. 'Shark Tank' takes me back to my early days working with ambitious founders in their earliest and scrappiest days. The show reminds me of what I deeply love about this business.
2009 was one of the busiest, most insane, stressful periods in my entire career. I was raising a bunch of money, buying a bunch of Twitter. I saw my friend fired as CEO of Twitter. Uber was growing like a weed. As these companies get bigger and bigger, there's more and more friction. Being public was the last thing I wanted to do at the time.
People get out ahead of themselves in debt with spending on all of their desires. But if you learn to live pretty simply and well, well under your means, you feel incredibly, incredibly rich, and that frees you up and gives you the option to start something new, to leave the job you're not excited about, where there might be a glass ceiling on you.