October 2010
Beginner
352 pages
6h 11m
English
Content preview from Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 43. Do or Do Not, There Is No Try
Brad Feld
Brad is a managing director at Foundry Group and one of the co-founders of TechStars.
When I grow up I want to be like Yoda (except for the short green part). Until then, I'll just do my best to incorporate his philosophy into my life.
$DO ∥ ! $DO; try
Try: command not found
I've always found this Yoda quote to epitomize how I try to live my life. Ever since I was a little kid, I never really understood what try meant. There were lots of things I did and lots of things I failed at. However, even when I failed, I viewed myself as having "done it" even if I wasn't successful. When I wanted to master something, I did it a lot. I didn't try to do it—I did it, and accepted the failure along with the success.
Throughout the years I heard many people say, "You should try this" or "You should try that." Sometimes it was trivial (for example, you should try foie gras); other times, it was complex (you should try to learn how to play the piano.) My parents taught me early on that "No" or "I'm not interested" was an acceptable answer, so I was rarely intimidated when faced with something new. I also started to understand the difference between preference (for example, try foie gras and see if you like it) and accomplishment (try to learn how to play the piano). I realized preference was unimportant in the context of accomplishment but the inverse ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.