Quotes from Joe Lonsdale

We want to inspire everyone to recognize the positive social impact they can have if they choose to become technologists.

America has the greatest military in the world, and it's up to our leaders to set the bar for what a 21st century military culture of innovation with transparent, collaborative leadership looks like.

I'm always investing and building things at the same time.

Private equity investors are an integral part of the economy and should be celebrated for making our country wealthier.

Top technologists have a tremendous capacity - and, therefore, a tremendous responsibility - to build things that make a positive impact on the world.

When you solve big, hard problems, problems that fundamentally improve how an industry works, financial returns follow, giving you resources to do more of the same.

Not everybody has to work on the big problems, but if nobody does, they don't get solved.

Many of humanity's most intractable challenges will only be solved through market-driven innovation.

Great VCs are more than mere investors; they are often seasoned leaders who have built companies themselves.

Marketing is your battle plan for the sales team - it's about defining the landscape. Marketing is doing cohort analysis and understanding exactly what possible customers are out there. It's understanding not only which customers will respond to what messages, but also how customers will become clients if you include certain product features.

I am not by any means a philosopher, although I have worked with some talented people in the discipline. But certain philosophical concepts deeply inform the way I think about the world. The idea of 'opposing truths at extremes' is a powerful concept that I came to appreciate in my twenties.

I have learned that if I only see and deeply appreciate one side of an argument, it means I am probably missing something important.

A lot of the companies that I am inclined to get involved in have a mission to fix something that is 'broken' in the world.

Applying smarter IT to genomic data may offer the potential to cure many types of cancer and other diseases.

Technological unemployment is scary for those affected - but has always gone hand in hand with economic progress.

Fear is the wrong response to technological unemployment. Focusing on economic flexibility and adaptability - with special attention to eliminating the barriers we've accidentally created to the mobility of the working classes - is the right response to technological disruption.

The only way to create prosperity is to do more with less. In economic terms, an increase in productivity is an increase in the amount or quality of output generated for each unit of input. Jobs do not make society wealthier - productivity does.

I think that the culture at Stanford really shapes how you view the world, and you get a lot more out of an entrepreneurial mindset.

What would I advise an aspiring young entrepreneur? Certainly I'd say read the works of great entrepreneurs and investors like Ben Horowitz, Peter Thiel, and many others. But what's more important is to get real experience at a great startup.

I have seen a lot of now-great companies at their earliest stages, and these early-stage startups are not built by the senior people who know how to run and scale big-company machines.

We use convertible notes a lot at our fund - 8VC - so often that we just call them 'notes' to save time.

As we progress as a species, we will unlock new means for enhancing our lives at every turn - and our conceptions of wealth and poverty will evolve in tandem.

There's no substitute for experiencing ups and downs - seeing how it's okay that things are overwhelming or broken sometimes and how companies recover from mistakes.

Our best and brightest must conceive of themselves as stewards of our society and confront the critical challenges of our time. It's the best bet for our society, for entrepreneurs, and for the investors who believe in them.