The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success. Evan Williams More Quotes by Evan Williams More Quotes From Evan Williams Hard things are valuable; easy things are not so valuable. Reaching the mountaintop is rewarding because it is hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Evan Williams reaching valuable easy Take care of yourself: When you don't sleep, eat crap, don't exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers. Love those close to you: Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationship is. Evan Williams exercise sleep long User experience is everything. It always has been, but it's undervalued and underinvested in. If you don't know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Evan Williams design inspirational people The things that keep nagging at you are the ones worth exploring. Evan Williams nagging exploring Change the world. Build a business. Have fun. Evan Williams having-fun fun world Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps. Evan Williams technology desire long Assume the best but hire paranoid people. Evan Williams paranoid assuming people Our problem wasn’t that it blew up and was impossible to scale, but there were some bad choices made. One of the biggest lessons time after time was to focus. Do fewer things. Evan Williams choices-made lessons focus Marketing, when done well, is about story telling. Evan Williams entrepreneur marketing stories Every major communication tool on the Internet has spam and abuse problems. All email services, blogging services and social networks have to dedicate a significant amount of resources and time to fighting abuse and protecting their users. Evan Williams abuse communication fighting News in general doesn't matter most of the time, and most people would be far better off if they spent their time consuming less news and more ideas that have more lasting import. Evan Williams would-be people ideas After high school, I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but I stayed only a year and a half. I felt college was a waste of time; I wanted to start working. Evan Williams college years school Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationships is. Evan Williams work-and-life our-relationship balance When you’re obsessing about one thing, you can reach insights about how to solve hard problems. If you have too many things to think about, you’ll get to the superficial solution, not the brilliant one. Evan Williams brilliant problem thinking When I meet with the founders of a new company, my advice is almost always, ‘Do fewer things.’ It’s true of partnerships, marketing opportunities, anything that’s taking up your time. The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success. Evan Williams marketing opportunity advice I tried to be a ski bum when I stepped away from Twitter, and I wasn't a very good skier. Evan Williams skiers skis very-good I suspect there's a lot of validity to the premise that big companies aren't going to attract entrepreneurial talent. Evan Williams entrepreneurial talent bigs My life has been a series of well-orchestrated accidents; I've always suffered from hallucinogenic optimism. Evan Williams my-life accidents optimism life I think Twitter will be a fundamental part of how people interact with their government. Evan Williams will think government people I'm not a big-company guy. I need freedom and control. Evan Williams control need freedom guy
