If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right. But the enterprise of rational thought is based on theories, tests and improvements. We can never be certain, all we have is the best available explanation. So the hard work...

It’s a pretty simple calculation. How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you? What’s the psychic reward for the time you put into your favorite hobby? That machine that takes time and money to set up and run… what does it create when it’s operating? Not everything can or should be evaluated on a return on effort...

Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold? Sometimes, we get it backwards.

The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see. It’s tempting to begin where we are. But it’s more useful to begin where they are.

Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so much. Coney Island is dozens of small honky tonk vendors and attractions, an ecosystem, not a corporation. Independent local stores got hammered by the more organized stores in the mall and then by the centrally controlled...

When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get even better at sending telegrams.