Ben Silbermann People Quotations

I kind of think of engineering like the chefs at a restaurant. Nobody's going to deny chefs are integrally important, but there's also so many other people who contribute to a great meal.

Most people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work.

I thought Google was the coolest place. People there were so smart and they were all doing these really interesting things. I just felt really lucky to be a part of it even in a small way.

The companies that I really admire the most are the ones that have a deep visceral understanding of why people use their service, and they figure out ways of making money that are completely consistent with how people are feeling and what they are doing at the time.

I look around my neighborhood, and I see people hailing a cab or ordering their food and then paying for it all with their phone. I've read about that stuff for a really long time, and now it's starting to become commonplace.

People say doing a startup is like a marathon. It's actually a roadtrip at night with no headlights. You think you're going to Toledo but you're actually going to Miami and you might not have enough gas so you might need to buy gas from someone who might take you out if you aren't driving well

Don't take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give ~ with a few exceptions ~ generalize whatever they did. Don't over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.

I think the thing that I've learned is that really great people, they actually want to work on hard problems,