Andy Dunn
Marriage equality is not an issue of politics: it is an issue of justice achieved by political means.Collection: Equality
My mom is a Sikh immigrant born in a refugee camp. My Irish-Swedish-Norwegian-Danish-English-American dad grew up Baptist.Collection: Mom
Tenacity is not about avoiding being overwhelmed but being indomitable in the face of the overwhelming odds of your venture's failure.Collection: Failure
Only by being obsessed with little things do amazing things emerge.Collection: Amazing
When it came to religion, I felt I belonged to no one. It saddened me, it angered me, it confused me, and it made me religiously ambivalent. So I chose my calling: Cubs baseball.Collection: Religion
Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.Collection: Leadership
Your sympathy is worthless to people in need without action.Collection: Sympathy
Passion provides purpose, but data drives decisions.
Why should men be constrained by antiquated stereotypes of masculinity? What does it even mean to 'Be a Real Man' anymore? Shouldn't we all be celebrating a wide range of definitions of manhood?
What separates humans from other animals is our empathy. With the possible exception of bonobos, we are the most empathetic animal on the planet.
From Nike, we buy victory. From Under Armour, we buy protection. From Lululemon, we buy zen. From Patagonia, we buy conservation. From BMW, we buy performance.
The loudest voice in the room, sometimes, is the absent voice of the silenced.
Taking risks and being focused, sometimes, are at odds. Both are required to build a great company.
Growing up, my religious identity was primarily one of confusion. Nothing was pushed on me; nothing was overtly offered.
Money greases the wheel of American democracy and corrupts it all.
A great merchant delivers both joy and profit. Then profit gets reinvested in more joy.
My own hope is that, as a human species, we are on a long journey of evolution toward increasingly more tolerant and nonviolent behavior.
My definition of gender expands beyond just two genders.
History rewards those who can change their minds when the stakes are high.
The story of the merchant is told by the marketer. They need each other, and if they get along, it's peanut butter and jelly. If they don't, it's oil and water.
A little narcissism is good. At least that's what I am telling myself.
When the forces of liberalism and capitalism converge, change happens.
I'm not naive enough to believe it's in our nature to step outside our comfort zones.
Marc Lore has been a mentor of mine for a long time. He taught me how to hire people and how to do the hardest thing in business, which is to make a great culture. I believe Marc is the most innovative and ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur on the planet.
Culture is an output of a bunch of inputs that have to come together the right way. Specifically, it is the collision of people and their context, how they interact with each other in that context, and then how that context evolves based on those interactions as they multiply.
A protective self-narrative during conflict and duress sometimes obscures us from seeing the worst in ourselves. When the self-sustaining haze lifts after that conflict has subsided, we may recognize in ourselves the flaws the other saw in us at the time that we didn't have the emotional bandwidth to examine in the moment.
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) cannot be medicated. It is treatable only through therapy. The problem is therapy is rarely sought by the afflicted. It cannot be cured.
Everyone knows robots write the best books and make the best music. Just look at Daft Punk.
I don't feel I'm better than any man out there or that I have anything to teach, and the more I learn about myself, the less comfortable I feel saying anything at all.
In a conversation with a male executive, he tells me that he doesn't hire women because 'it's not worth the trouble.' I mentally blacklist him.
I've been in thousands of conversations dripping with misogyny. I've initiated many of those conversations myself. From my fraternity roots to my bachelor days in New York, I know I have not always shown up in ways that I am proud of.
Maybe everyone lives forever. Or maybe, like in the animated movie 'Coco,' only those whose stories get told by the living definitely do. It takes a story worth telling.
The more defensive and angry I get, the more I later discover those feelings are usually just projections of feelings I am having towards myself.
Good parents are always on time. So are good CEOs.
What Americans do is we come to each other's aid.
Entrepreneurs are not that special. If you are one, stop drinking the Kool Aid, and if you aren't, definitely don't drink it.
The life of an entrepreneur is the life of a human. Some days are amazing. Some days are a struggle. A lot are in between. It's the same for all of us.
The American lionization of the entrepreneur is to ignore its foibles - the narcissism, the workaholism, the neglect of family, the imbalance, the obsession. These are not universally good things, though they are frequently universal to building great companies.
We all have an entrepreneur in us; it's just whether we choose the tradeoffs to become one.
The youngest boy in an Indian family has a good life. Growing up in a matriarchal family where my Indian mom's culture was dominant, I experienced this first hand.
'I'm sorry, honey. I was wrong.' Are there six more magical words you can say to your wife?
At Bonobos, we believe in the future of men.
With more women in the workplace and in positions of power and leadership, with the legalization of gay marriage and the emerging liberation of the LGBTQ community, traditional definitions of masculinity are changing for the better.
My Indian grandmother was born in Punjab.
The rise of women and feminism is well documented. What is equally fascinating - and less talked about - is the impact this has had on men.
We built Bonobos, with more than a few dozen customers and counting, and the industry we were disrupting didn't seem to care. Then we 'sold out' to Walmart. Abracadabra. The red carpet rolled open.
Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions. It is what makes our country great.
Tolerance, diversity, and inclusion are not political opinions. They are non-negotiable human rights - hard fought and secured in America.
The prescience of the founding fathers continues to astonish me. They were freedom fighters. They made America. They gave us this magical country. They also were slaveowners - which is confusing to their legacy. How could such brilliant men have only secured freedom for themselves, but not their wives or their slaves?
The only reason courage exists is because sometimes it is required.