~The Importance of Quantity, Volume, and Excessive Learning~

Winston Churchill:

“While other politicians were content to get their information from a shattering of newspapers, he devoured whole bookshelves. Churchill was known to be found sleeping with encyclopedias.”

Edwin Land:

“When he was a young man he read every single book in the Harvard library on light. When he was done with that, he dropped out of Harvard and moved to New York City. Upon his relocation to NYC, he did the same exact thing— read every book on light in the NYC public library in attempts to establish his own ‘database’ inside his head.”

Thomas Edison:

“When he was a young boy working on the railroads they would make frequent stops over in Detroit. They would typically have several hours to kill. During this time, Edison read the entire library in Detroit.”

Jeff Bezos:

“Bezos would spend summers with his grandparents on the ranch in Texas. His grandfather would often take him into town. A young Jeff Bezos used this time to read the entire science fiction section of the local library.”

“Don’t bend. Don’t water it down. Don’t try to make it logical. Don’t edit your soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

Question: What is the better predictor in business success— determination or intelligence?

Answer: It is much more important to be determined than smart. If you imagine a hypothetical person who is 100/100 for smart and 100/100 for determination, and then you start taking away determination, it doesn’t take very long until you have an ineffectual but brilliant person. Whereas if you take someone who is super determined and take away intelligence, eventually you get a person who owns a lot of taxi medallions or a trashing company, but is still rich. 

It is important to note that it only takes one person on the founding team to be super determined.