Almost everything is interesting if you work at it.

Almost nothing can make you more miserable than when your company is struggling, and only then do you realize that this is exactly when it's almost impossible for a CEO to quit.

I learned that sometimes you should just tell people the ugliest things about you because those are the things that people trust the most.

Whereas any political party, and nearly all voters, prize consistency as a sign of authentic, values-driven thinking, it is deeply alien to the hacker, who holds that changing your mind is simply intelligence in action.

The core hacker premise that 'code wins arguments' is just another way of saying that anything is worth trying, regardless of whether it is a conservative or liberal idea, and that whatever works is worth keeping.

Many of the ex-hippies who started companies like Apple, or the early online bulletin boards dedicated to organic food and following the Grateful Dead, were an odd combination of liberals and libertarians.

Many of the libertarian entrepreneurs who only want the government to leave them alone have simply forgotten how important government research, public education, and immigration policy are to Silicon Valley's long-term success.

In 2006, I appeared before a House subcommittee considering real estate reform. It was like visiting the capital for the 'Hunger Games' as an outsider in a glamorous and byzantine fairy tale: I couldn't believe how beautiful all the congressional aides were, and I never understood the system of bells and alarms warning legislators to vote.

With Facebook's IPO, the world learned a new way of organizing businesses around one overriding imperative: to ship new products quickly.

Slow investing can have the same impact on startups that slow food has had on cuisine: good things come to those who wait.

If you build a better mousetrap, regardless of your marketing budget, the world will beat its own path to your door.

Any educated person recognizes that curiosity and creativity aren't just important; they are among the essential human activities.

After a young adulthood trying to get him to see the world for how it really is, my brother Wes and I have come back to the way our dad is, realizing that it's sometimes our job to see the world as it could be, as we want it to be.

Growing up is mostly the process of having to acknowledge the differences between your world and the whole world.

When my brother and I were 11, our father designed a 17-foot boat for sailing around the world. He'd never ventured more than a few miles from the U.S. He'd never sailed - or designed a boat before.

It's important for a CEO to feel lucky.

Every firing happens differently except in this one respect: the person being fired can't believe how fast it happens.

When I was 28, running products for a company I'd co-founded, the CEO called to say that I had a problem with the board, that I probably couldn't overcome it, that I'd have to leave the company.

The problem for new businesses isn't corporate taxes. Anyone who has actually started a new business knows you don't make enough money for years to pay any meaningful tax on it.

Startups alternate between nostalgia for the garage and millennial longing for a lucrative exit. But what I always keep in mind is how disconnected and purposeless I felt before Redfin or my earlier startup, Plumtree. All I ever wanted was to get into a situation where I could win. Everybody has that dream.

When I was still settling into being a CEO, I wasted a lot of time driving initiatives designed to please others, acting as if someone wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do with Redfin.

I often think about what my replacement will do after I'm fired. She won't have emotional commitments to decisions that I already regret.

Startups can be the most conservative organizations in the world. We spend so much energy nurturing our delicate egos against naysayers and self-doubt that we can hardly admit mistakes. This is especially true of first-time CEOs.

Even though I am sympathetic to newspapers, I am not entirely convinced by the newspapers' claim that Google News violates fair use standards in posting snippets from news articles on its site.