In technology startups, there's a lot of winging it. Harper Reed More Quotes by Harper Reed More Quotes From Harper Reed This idea of, there's a locked door; how do you open it? You don't necessarily care what's behind it; you're just more excited about opening the lock... It's not about finding the treasure; it's more about defeating the puzzle. Harper Reed puzzledooryoucare Very smart people are often tricked by hackers, by phishing. I don't exclude myself from that. It's about being smarter than a hacker. Not about being smart. Harper Reed hackermyselfsmartpeople Taking time to do something slower than you normally would is a privilege that should not be ignored. Harper Reed somethingyouprivilegetime One of my favourite books about hackers is 'Masters of Deception' about this hacking group in the 1990s. Many of them didn't come from wealthy families. These are kids that are very intelligent; they just happen to be misdirected. Harper Reed happengroupdeceptionintelligent I don't drink coffee; I drink a lot of green tea and water. Harper Reed greencoffeeteawater I spent a lot of time hacking, doing all this stuff, building websites, building communities, working all the time, and then a lot of time drinking, partying, and hanging out. And I had to choose when to do which. Harper Reed choosedoingbuildingtime We didn't want to waste time by sending our volunteers to Republicans; we sent them to the undecided. Harper Reed waste-timewastewanttime If there's a wall, we break it down and go through it. Harper Reed downthroughgobreak Before I was hired by Obama's team as the CTO for his 2012 re-election campaign, I had certainly never been involved with anything of that nature before. Yet, I somehow knew I could do the job. I attribute that confidence to my experience as a hacker and the subsequent willingness to take risks. Harper Reed jobconfidenceexperiencenature If you get a WhatsApp message, you're probably going to open it. That's the interesting thing. Harper Reed whatsappmessageyouinteresting Books have literally powered most of my life. Whether as a stress relief when doing hard things or as vacation fodder, they are a constant and important part of my life. Harper Reed my-lifevacationstresslife My parents are very supportive: they helped redirect my technology attitude and my punkness into positive things. Harper Reed parentstechnologyattitudepositive I've had a lot of bosses that I didn't agree with, but the worst boss was very much me myself. So, I can't let myself slack off, and if I do slacking off, I'm the one that's yelling at myself. I've worked with a lot of different employers, and none of them have been as aggressive as I have been. Harper Reed myselfmebossworst Campaigns are crazy things. They're half startup, half enterprise. Harper Reed thingscrazy-thingscrazyhalf In the U.S., it's all about turnout, which means you have to appeal to every single Democrat to get them to vote. Harper Reed getyousinglevote I can only speak to the Democrat side, but for the Democrats, everything is aggressively measured, and what that means is if you're going to use Snapchat, you're going to use it for a reason, not just for fun. Harper Reed youi-canspeakfun The digital team who were running Twitter, they weren't just going to put out a tweet for fun. They're going to try and figure out how do we measure the impact. Then they'd tweet it, and if it worked, great. Harper Reed greatdigitalteamfun I am patiently waiting for the singularity. Harper Reed patientlyami-amwaiting The team that I had built was all white dudes with the same perspective on things that was at times comfortable and easy, but we weren't as innovative as our competitors. Harper Reed perspectiveteamwhiteeasy Not every time you open Messenger do you want an Uber, but when you do want an Uber, it appears. That is the goal. Harper Reed openyouwanttime
