Being in line is about the mastery of replication: performing the same acts with the same tools to produce the same things.

Being out of line is about regularly starting from scratch: it’s an iterative and sometimes clunky process that experiments with different tools to produce different things — some more...

There will occasionally be times when the work and the manner in which it is done will appear to fall short of expectations:
The mission gets slowed down by a colossal road block that you and your team could not have foreseen.
Bad information is received from a trustworthy source.
The first several...

At what point does a rock become worth over 200 times more than another one[1,2]?
Maybe one is more attractive than the other, though as Washington University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences will note, ‘both visually and computationally’ the rocks look the same[3].
Maybe, then, the stark increase in value can...

Nothing in the laws of forward motion suggests that the forces that slows us down should be clear and obvious.
Some opposing forces are unwittingly nurtured when we choose to do things because they’re the most familiar thing we know, not because they are necessarily the best thing to do.
Some opposing...

Our humanity is grounded by the fact that we all have moments:
Moments where we see a truth that we didn’t see before — the fact that you really do care about that person’s well-being, that the work you’ve been doing is or isn’t making the change you set out to...

Pixar’s 20-acre campus in Emeryville, California isn’t for everyone.
On one hand, its design makes getting around woefully inconvenient: where short and efficient right-angles and straight-line paths could’ve been built, there are funny curves and contortions.
On the other hand, maybe quickly getting to one’s office or to the subway station isn’t...

A hook is what you put in front of the fishing line, not the middle.
The hook is the first action you take, it’s the first thing you say — it’s the first and most important point that needs to be made in order for a change to happen.
Making a good...

Sometimes it's doubt, not bad vision, that gets in the way of us seeing things clearly.

In 1951 Psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a study involving a participant sitting in a room with confederates — people purporting to be a part of the study but who were actually working for Asch —...