Fish with slowed-down growth in their early days go on to live 30% longer than average. Those with artificial super-charged growth early on die 15% earlier than average.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, in equal proportion. As a corollary: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary scrutiny.

Every business and every industry has a natural growth rate – push beyond it and short-term growth comes at the cost of long-term quality, and eventually survival.

Species evolve to get bigger bodies over time, because there are competitive advantages to being big. But big has its own drawbacks, and can often be the cause of extinction.

When the limits of fast growth impact goldfish and rats the same way it limits tech companies, you know you’ve found an essential part of how the world works, and will continue working in the future.

When two plus two equals ten. A little cool air from the north is no big deal. A little warm breeze from the south is pleasant. But when they mix together over Missouri you get a tornado. The same thing happens in careers, when someone with a few mediocre skills mixed together at the right time becomes multiple times more successful than someone who’s an expert in one thing.

Jeff Bezos famously said “your margin is my opportunity,” which is the same concept. The biggest opportunities happen when a hot talent meets a cold industry.

There is a natural limit to how fast something can grow, governed by how fast it can absorb certain nutrients.

Part of why inflation sparks heated debates is because everyone spends their money differently, so there’s no single inflation rate – your inflation may be very different from someone else’s, then people get angry that others don’t see what they see.

All physical laws work when you’re moving the same way they do when you’re at rest, which gives two people watching an event different perspectives of what happened.

Tocqueville Paradox (sociology): People’s expectations rise faster than living standards, so a society that becomes exponentially wealthier can see a decline in net happiness and satisfaction. There is virtually nothing people can’t get accustomed to, which also helps explain why there is so much desire for innovation and improvement.

The availability of the most abundant nutrient in the soil is only as good as the availability of the least abundant nutrient in the soil.

People will believe anything if enough people tell them it’s true.