Thoughts from a startup legend

Check out Lund at Le Web:

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/as-raw-as-it-gets-startup-legend-lund-bankrupt/

This, just in...

Old-school economist John Maynard Keynes described the spontaneous optimism that drives startups:

"A large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—of a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

"Enterprise only pretends to itself to be mainly actuated by the statements in its own prospectus, however candid and sincere. Only a little more than an expedition to the South Pole, is it based on an exact calculation of benefits to come. Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die—though fears of loss may have a basis no more reasonable than hopes of profit had before.

"It is safe to say that enterprise which depends on hopes stretching into the future benefits the community as a whole. But individual initiative will only be adequate when reasonable calculation is supplemented and supported by animal spirits, so that the thought of ultimate loss which often overtakes pioneers, as experience undoubtedly tells us and them, is put aside as a healthy man puts aside the expectation of death."

— The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

Dying Man Teaches Time Management

With such limited time to live, you can get pretty clear about time management.   Randy Pausch covers the bases:

Good Business (& Life) Advice from an Academic

Planning

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

It can also be said of the planning process in business.  The value of a business plan is not so much in the plan that results from the process, but in the process itself.

The Secret of Getting Ahead

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” 

Mark Twain

Warren Buffett - his life story

The Snowball:  Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

I found it impossible to resist reading this excellent book, the first biography of Warren Buffett, world's richest man, written with his full cooperation. 

What fascinated me was how we had such similar experiences growing up. 

What motivates a man to become and remain the most successful investor on the planet?  Click this link, buy the book, and enjoy the lessons.