Seventeenth-century England was much like the third world today, in that government office was a recognized route to wealth. The great fortunes of th… - Paul Graham

If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win. Big companies want to decrease the standard deviation of design outcomes because they want to avoid disasters. But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as the low. This is not a problem for big companies, because they don't win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies.

You don't know how big a fish you are till you try a big pond.

Don't imitate qualities of your heroes at random. Some are flaws they succeeded despite. The qualities that are easiest to imitate are the most likely to be the flaws.