Chris Sacca
The day after Donald Trump was elected, Chinese business leaders, including the heads of Baidu, stood up and gave a speech saying, 'Come to China and build your company now.' The cognitive dissonance of that was amazing for some of us to think we might be losing our leadership role in building companies.Collection: Leadership
Planet colonization is not a short term concern of mine. The physical limitations of space travel render it low on the list for me.Collection: Travel
American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They've rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.Collection: Science
Once my ears were open to hearing mentions of 'Shark Tank', I was surprised by how many people in our world, even in our industry, tech and finance, loved the show.Collection: Finance
When you see a 'Shark fight' erupt, we aggressively want to understand what we are committing our money toward.
People get out ahead of themselves in debt with spending on all of their desires. But if you learn to live pretty simply and well, well under your means, you feel incredibly, incredibly rich, and that frees you up and gives you the option to start something new, to leave the job you're not excited about, where there might be a glass ceiling on you.
Just don't spend your money, and you're well on your way to becoming a millionaire.
When you get into investing, your default stance should be 'No,' because most deals suck. Most deals won't make money. Most companies will fail.
For most people, Twitter is too hard to use.
For most people, Twitter feels lonely.
For most people, tweeting is scary.
My biggest concern is the abundance of public doubt and misunderstanding when it comes to Twitter's vision and the near future for the service.
If Twitter genuinely wants users to buy things at scale, they have to give us a chance to consider the offers and make a decision in a matter of minutes/hours/days, not just seconds.
Live Twitter can be built right into the main Twitter app, but it should certainly have its own tab so we can concentrate on the live experience free of distraction.
I was in the room when Sundar convinced Eric Schmidt that it would be possible to unseat Internet Explorer as the world's most popular browser.
I don't drink coffee. Weird, I know. But I try to stay away from caffeine. That said, we are investors in Blue Bottle, which is delicious!
George Winston piano albums have been my go-to since junior high.
Buckminster Fuller - he never lost faith in the goodness of humanity.
I find talented, driven, boundlessly ambitious people and help them solve problems that will hopefully improve the lives of millions. Sometimes this means investing in startup founders. Other times, it involves helping organize and fundraise for charity or politics.
The passive acceptance of exclusionary words and deeds is not okay.
In the earlier years of my career, I made my own attempts to fit in and be accepted as one of the tribe of Sand Hill Road guys.
I'll miss working with Mark, and all of the other Sharks. Each of them has been incredibly generous and warm to me, and I am proud of all the episodes we made together.
I don't have a boss or PR person, so I'm accountable to no one.
When I think about Trump and the GOP, the blood really is on their hands.
There are two reasons to pursue diversity and inclusion. One, because you believe one group has benefitted from hundreds of years of discrimination, or two, maybe you don't like that women make 73 cents on the dollar compared to men.
One rule we have at my house is, be proud of what we invest in.
I'm also launching a podcast. Because, I mean, the world desperately needs another podcast, am I right? Not to be a tease, but the format is different from anything else I've seen out there, and the subject matter is hopefully boundless, eye-opening, and a little cathartic.
If you follow my tweets, you know, my attention and anxiety have been increasingly focused on the plight of our democracy.
I think the institutions, principles, norms, and traditions that make the United States of America genuinely exceptional are at serious risk. It has been hard to think about anything else.
You can't necessarily tell when watching at home, but those pitches are usually an hour long each, and many are emotional, hilarious, and inspiring.
I want to make clear that my feedback comes from a place of loyalty and persistent gratitude. I love Twitter.
I believe there is no natural ceiling on the revenue Twitter can generate. I also believe that Twitter's reach can become more pervasive and its impact on the world more meaningful.
If Trump publicly commits to embrace science, stops threatening censorship of the Internet, rejects fake news and denounces hate against our diverse employees, only then it would make sense for tech leaders to visit Trump Tower.
Make tweets effortless to enjoy, make it easier for all to participate, and make each of us on Twitter feel heard and valuable.
All broadcasts on Periscope need to be archived for playback permanently, unless the broadcaster chooses to delete the recording. So many treasured moments have been shared on Periscope only to vanish a day later.
Twitter can afford to build the wrong things. However, Twitter cannot afford to build the right things too slowly.
I think there wouldn't be a Net neutrality debate in this country if we really had a competitive environment for access.
The Internet is not pervasive as it could be, or democratic.
I am retiring from startup investing. It's hard to leave all this behind right when things are going so well.
There simply isn't a way to do the show without investing in a bunch more companies.
Facebook is who you used to know; Twitter is who you want to know and things you want to know more about.
Simplicity is hard to build, easy to use, and hard to charge for. Complexity is easy to build, hard to use, and easy to charge for.
I have learned a ton about inventory, co-packing, wholesaling, end caps. All these concepts are easy to breeze by in what I do for a living or assume that there is a marketing manager or specialist in one of our companies that handles that.
The only way I know to be awesome at startups is to be obsessively focused and pegged to the floor of the deep end, gasping for air.
The idea that there is a meritocracy where anyone from any background really might have the social and economic mobility to rise to the top in Silicon Valley, those are antithetical to a lot of the principles that the Trump administration apparently stands for.
There I was - 20 years old, living in Ireland, and I'd never heard the word 'venture capitalist.' But I'd said that I wanted a job that involved a lot of negotiation, a lot of yelling at people on the phone, and for it to be high-risk, high-reward.
Uber has an information advantage, a computational advantage. There's massive structural advantages to the player who's smartest about how to deploy cars, where to deploy cars, how to adjust pricing dynamics, how to ensure supply of drivers - the party that understands best the behavior of riders.
Ride-sharing is one of the biggest math problems that's ever been approached, that's ever been attempted to be solved.
I have one of the self-driving Teslas; it drives itself periodically. It's a marvel of science, but it's still frightening. I think we've got a while before regulators and the general public wrap their heads around the path that will lead to the ubiquity of driverless cars. There's no doubt Uber will be a leader in that space.
When I first agreed to do 'Shark Tank,' they asked me to wear a suit, and I was just like, 'No. I can't. It'll end my career.'