A little narcissism is good. At least that's what I am telling myself.
— Andy Dunn
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) cannot be medicated. It is treatable only through therapy. The problem is therapy is rarely sought by the afflicted. It cannot be cured.
People who are great at making decisions in the face of uncertainty have great judgment.
Who would you rather be with: someone with more alternatives or someone with fewer?
My mom is a Sikh immigrant born in a refugee camp. My Irish-Swedish-Norwegian-Danish-English-American dad grew up Baptist.
Marc Lore has been a mentor of mine for a long time. He taught me how to hire people and how to do the hardest thing in business, which is to make a great culture. I believe Marc is the most innovative and ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur on the planet.
The only reason courage exists is because sometimes it is required.
Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions. It is what makes our country great.
My Indian grandmother was born in Punjab.
From Nike, we buy victory. From Under Armour, we buy protection. From Lululemon, we buy zen. From Patagonia, we buy conservation. From BMW, we buy performance.
A great merchant delivers both joy and profit. Then profit gets reinvested in more joy.
The loudest voice in the room, sometimes, is the absent voice of the silenced.
We all have an entrepreneur in us; it's just whether we choose the tradeoffs to become one.
Entrepreneurs are not that special. If you are one, stop drinking the Kool Aid, and if you aren't, definitely don't drink it.
Good parents are always on time. So are good CEOs.
Maybe everyone lives forever. Or maybe, like in the animated movie 'Coco,' only those whose stories get told by the living definitely do. It takes a story worth telling.
In a conversation with a male executive, he tells me that he doesn't hire women because 'it's not worth the trouble.' I mentally blacklist him.
The act of founding a company is its own act of narcissism: 'I alone can do this.'
Honesty is love.
To an entrepreneur, closing a financing often feels like the end of a marathon. It's actually the starting gun.
When it came to religion, I felt I belonged to no one. It saddened me, it angered me, it confused me, and it made me religiously ambivalent. So I chose my calling: Cubs baseball.
If you are not something, how do you become it? It is not obvious to me that you can be something you are not.
Graduating business school, I had $150,000 of debt. An investment firm offered me a steady job, but it didn't feel right. It was 2007 in Silicon Valley, and I dreamed of starting an Internet company.
The prescience of the founding fathers continues to astonish me. They were freedom fighters. They made America. They gave us this magical country. They also were slaveowners - which is confusing to their legacy. How could such brilliant men have only secured freedom for themselves, but not their wives or their slaves?
We built Bonobos, with more than a few dozen customers and counting, and the industry we were disrupting didn't seem to care. Then we 'sold out' to Walmart. Abracadabra. The red carpet rolled open.
Why should men be constrained by antiquated stereotypes of masculinity? What does it even mean to 'Be a Real Man' anymore? Shouldn't we all be celebrating a wide range of definitions of manhood?
At Bonobos, we believe in the future of men.
History rewards those who can change their minds when the stakes are high.
Passion provides purpose, but data drives decisions.
The American lionization of the entrepreneur is to ignore its foibles - the narcissism, the workaholism, the neglect of family, the imbalance, the obsession. These are not universally good things, though they are frequently universal to building great companies.
What Americans do is we come to each other's aid.
The more defensive and angry I get, the more I later discover those feelings are usually just projections of feelings I am having towards myself.
My definition of gender expands beyond just two genders.
I don't feel I'm better than any man out there or that I have anything to teach, and the more I learn about myself, the less comfortable I feel saying anything at all.
I want to be Batman.
As a society, we must not allow human rights abuses to go unnoticed and undocumented; it is a vital mission to fight ignorance of these tragic events.
Too many entrepreneurs think their valuation is the real economic price of their company. It's not. It's not a real economic price unless you are selling 100%.
Growing up, my religious identity was primarily one of confusion. Nothing was pushed on me; nothing was overtly offered.
Since its founding, I've been friends with ModCloth's cofounders and many of its executives and investors. I have long imagined we would one day belong under one roof with that brand as a force in the future of apparel.
I have come to an odd belief, which is that we don't make decisions so much as the decisions make us. The goal of a decision isn't just to find the path forward, but to become someone entirely different than who we might have been as a function of the path we take.
Tolerance, diversity, and inclusion are not political opinions. They are non-negotiable human rights - hard fought and secured in America.
The rise of women and feminism is well documented. What is equally fascinating - and less talked about - is the impact this has had on men.
With more women in the workplace and in positions of power and leadership, with the legalization of gay marriage and the emerging liberation of the LGBTQ community, traditional definitions of masculinity are changing for the better.
The story of the merchant is told by the marketer. They need each other, and if they get along, it's peanut butter and jelly. If they don't, it's oil and water.
'I'm sorry, honey. I was wrong.' Are there six more magical words you can say to your wife?
The youngest boy in an Indian family has a good life. Growing up in a matriarchal family where my Indian mom's culture was dominant, I experienced this first hand.
The life of an entrepreneur is the life of a human. Some days are amazing. Some days are a struggle. A lot are in between. It's the same for all of us.
Only by being obsessed with little things do amazing things emerge.
Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.
I've been in thousands of conversations dripping with misogyny. I've initiated many of those conversations myself. From my fraternity roots to my bachelor days in New York, I know I have not always shown up in ways that I am proud of.
