Cameron's First Principles

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I try to be a first principles thinker.

This is a mostly complete list of my personal first principles.

I update them as I change my mind

First Principles

• The world is constructed entirely by people who are mostly winging it
  (and a lot of them don't realize that about themselves)


• People want to do zero work and make more money.


• Everything is held together with duct tape.


• Victories only compound if you make them. Losses compound if you let them.


• You can fix a bad decision. You can't fix "no" decision.


• Strategy is about choice. Mostly the choice of what you're NOT doing.


• Iteration at scale is more effective than any planning process could ever be.


• It's a lot easier to ride a wave than to create one, but there's much more value in the latter.


• If it doesn't make sense to you and you're mostly smart, you're probably right
  (but don't forget to wonder about what information you might be missing)


• Ideas are ONLY ever validated when they touch reality.
        - Money spent is the strongest validation. Actions taken are the next strongest.
        - Words and shares are useful, especially for lightweight testing (but often misleading).
        - Likes are directionally helpful.


• You can do anything you want to do...but you can't do EVERYTHING you want to do.


• Nobody cares about your thing. That's both soul-crushing and liberating.


• You shouldn't care about most tiny details... but you should care about certain tiny details a LOT.


• Done is better than perfect almost every time.

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