Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Burn Book: A Tech Love Story:
“summed up Zuckerberg’s attitude perfectly, noting, “Between speech and truth, he chose speech. Between speed and perfection, he chose speed. Between scale and safety, he chose scale.” That idea of “mistakes were made” in service to the bigger idea would carry throughout Zuckerberg’s career and bleed into Facebook’s culture. This approach was distilled in the “Move fast and break things” posters that adorned the company headquarters early on. While this motto was a geek coding reference to software, it was a telling choice. The aim was to “break things” instead of “change things” or “fix things” or “improve things.”
“The trash-talkers are the most annoying to me, aiming all kinds of barbs at journalists, the government, the “woke” culture, the state of California, and particularly San Francisco, where most of them made their fortunes. They position themselves as populist truth-tellers to their legions of stans. I don’t know about you, but it’s funny to see the world’s richest men urging people to stick it to the man, when they are the man. They are, as often as not, inaccurate and couldn’t care less.”
“A garden is never Finished, and nor are you: Become, I think, a garden again, And never, like a garden, cease.”
“I have always maintained that the people who ultimately succeed are the creative ones.”
“French philosopher Paul Virilio has a quote I think about a lot: “When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution…. Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.”
“Silicon Valley had perfected the image of itself as a meritocracy and touted that as one of its greatest strengths—that anyone could become a billionaire. In fact, tech has always been a mirrortocracy, full of people who liked their own reflection so much that they only saw value in those that looked the same. They keep copying themselves, choosing slight variations on the same avatar template. Financial success was proof of their talents, which was like the old cliché of starting on third base and thinking you hit a home run.”
“We had, in essence, privatized our public discourse and were now allowing billionaires to implement the rules of the road.”
“In the poem, “A Gathered Distance,” Mark Tredinnick articulates this well. He writes: A garden is never Finished, and nor are you: Become, I think, a garden again, And never, like a garden, cease.”
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“He was right, and even more so when he said: “The better we get at getting better, the faster we will get better.”
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution…. Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.”
“masking them behind a genuinely infectious maniacal laugh, a curiously baby-fat face, and an anodyne presentation of pleated khakis, sensible shoes, and blue Oxford shirt. Still, from the start, I had no doubt that Jeff Bezos would eat my face off if that is what he needed to do to get ahead.”
“The article noted, “A second senior U.S. defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said that there is no system comparable to Starlink and that the cost is likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year. This person had sharp words for Musk saying he ‘dangles hope over the heads of millions, then sticks the DoD with the bill for a system no one asked for but now so many depend on.’ ” The kicker concluded, “ ‘Elon’s gonna Elon,’ the official said.”
“Chapter 15: pivoting (page 273)The takeaway from the show-and Gray's overall point-was that everyone is interesting if you ask the right questions. This has always been my approach to interviewing. While I have no particular secret, I approach every interview with these three goals: (1) to make it a conversation, (2) to not be afraid to ask the question everyone is thinking, and (3) to conduct each discussion as if I were never going to interview that person again.”
“Chapter 12: good bones (page 210)As famed management guru Peter Drucker said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.”
“Chapter 11: staying vertical (page 194)Like Jobs, I truly believe that you should push yourself in areas where you are passionate, and if you don't feel passion toward something, get out of it.”
“Chapter 11: staying vertical (page 193)The experience got me thinking about what is normal and how it's different for everyone. As Jobs discussed in his Stanford speech, I was confronted by a series of questions: How much time should you spend on your personal life? How much time do you spend on your professional life?”
“Chapter 11: staying vertical (page 185)"You've got to find what you love," Jobs told the graduating class. "And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.”
“Chapter 11: staying vertical (page 182)The speech had a key line: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything-all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure-these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
“Chapter 11: staying vertical (page 182)"The people who love you are the only ones that count," he* said to me. Then, tearing up, he added, "Don't waste your time on anyone else."*Steve Jobs”
“Chapter 6: the end of the beginning (page 98)I have always maintained that the people who ultimately succeed are the creative ones.”
“Osnos summed up Zuckerberg’s attitude perfectly, noting, “Between speech and truth, he chose speech. Between speed and perfection, he chose speed. Between scale and safety, he chose scale.” That idea of “mistakes were made” in service to the bigger idea would carry throughout Zuckerberg’s career and bleed into Facebook’s culture. This approach was distilled in the “Move fast and break things” posters that adorned the company headquarters early on. While this motto was a geek coding reference to software, it was a telling choice. The aim was to “break things” instead of “change things” or “fix things” or “improve things.”
“I came to realize that many tech titans’ warped self-righteousness fueled them more than money, power, and the growing legions of obsequious enablers on the payroll. It inevitably curdled their souls, creating an arrogance that masked what was a deep self-hatred and anger. I have never seen a more powerful and rich group of people who saw themselves as the victim so intensely. Which is why, by nature, they insisted on reframing every failure and mistake they made as an asset—even when it was a failure and, sometimes, a very damaging mistake. Of course, they loved quoting Edison’s quaint trope: “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” But this declaration leaves out a lot about who’s responsible when things go terribly awry and real people get hurt. And because of the reach and amplification of tech, that hurt scaled quickly and continues to this day.”
“A truism began to form in my brain about the lack of women and people of color in the leadership ranks of tech: The innovators and executives ignored issues of safety not because they were necessarily awful, but because they had never felt unsafe a day in their lives.”
“The innovators and executives ignored issues of safety not because they were necessarily awful, but because they had never felt unsafe a day in their lives”
“Index There is no index, people. So, you have to read the whole book all the way through to see if you’re in it. I’ll be honest—most of you are not. Still, read it all, even though it’s hundreds of pages. Think of it like doom-scrolling Twitter—”
“Sue Decker, who was president at Yahoo, once asked me the simple question: “Why do people leak? Are they just disgruntled?” Since I liked Decker, I decided to level with her. “It’s easy to say they’re disgruntled or sneaky,” I replied. “But they leak because they feel like you’re not listening to them and that you do listen to me. And, therefore, employees believe the best way to effect change that needs to happen is to leak. To me.”
“Another great source of intel came from contacting employees who had quit or been fired. I often thought of myself as Silicon Valley’s HR department, conducting exit interviews right as people were ready to spill. It was time-consuming, but the effort paid off over and over. Remember: People always like to tell their side of the story.”
“It was a weird boy wonderland, not unlike Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, except no one minded the transformation from human into donkey. Instead, they relished it.”
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