Muse

Once upon a time this was a tumblr blog

February 6th, 2026 12:00pm

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October 12th, 2016 6:37pm

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The link between production and distribution, or how much you work and how much you make, gets further attenuated. Because machines are doing more and more of the work. —

August 5th, 2016 3:00pm

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A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say; we did it ourselves.

— Lao Tzu

August 5th, 2016 3:00pm

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The secret to leadership may not lie in having the right answers, but instead asking the right questions.

June 1st, 2016 12:20pm

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World After Capital

While we are creating dramatically more knowledge, human attention is fundamentally limited. We have 24 hours in the day. We need some of that time to eat and sleep. So that puts a hard limit on how much attention we have both individually and collectively (with population growth slowing down as a result of economic progress).

But why does that make attention scarce? How do we not have enough attention to meet our needs? This is the second major claim of the book. Individually, it is so because most of us are not spending enough of our attention on the question of our purpose and participating in the process of critical inquiry. Collectively, it is so because we are not spending enough of our attention on species level risks, such as climate change, asteroid strikes, infectious diseases and opportunities such as space travel, quantum computing, biology. We are also not paying nearly enough attention to democracy and to each other.

http://worldaftercapital.org/

April 24th, 2016 5:50pm

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Rudyard Kipling 1865 –1936

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

April 20th, 2016 1:50pm

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Mold Your Mind

Small minds talk about people,

average minds talk about events,

great minds talk about ideas.

April 15th, 2016 7:38pm

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Happy

When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wrote down “happy.”

They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.

April 7th, 2016 7:15pm

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Fence Swinging Logic

We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.

April 3rd, 2016 10:34pm

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Hope is not a strategy,

Luck is not a factor,

Failure is not an option.

February 15th, 2016 4:46pm

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Andy Rubin Unleashed Android on the World. Now Watch Him Do the Same With AI

February 15th, 2016 10:48am

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What Most People Don't Understand About How Startup Companies are Valued | Bothsides of the Table

February 15th, 2016 10:47am

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means and how to respond

January 25th, 2016 5:07pm

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Ten questions for work that matters

What are you doing that's difficult?

What are you doing that people believe only you can do?

Who are you connecting?

What do people say when they talk about you?

What are you afraid of?

What's the scarce resource?

Who are you trying to change?

What does the change look like?

Would we miss your work if you stopped making it?

What do you stand for?

What contribution are you making?

Hints: Any question that's difficult to answer deserves more thought. Any answers that are meandering, nuanced or complex are probably a symptom of something important.

November 22nd, 2015 2:38pm

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Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.