Quotes from Harper Reed

There is the egoism of technologists. We do it because we can create. I can handle all of the parameters going into the machine, and I know what is going to come out of it.

We developed our product called Dashboard, which was a software tool that was designed to be a virtual campaign office to help volunteers communicate and collaborate through emails and interacting online. It was our attempt to take an offline field office and merge it online.

Google Photos is great. I enjoy using it to curate my photo collection online. The integration on iOS to Apple Photos is a bit too much voodoo for me.

I read a lot of books. I read because it inspires me and shows me paths that I could never imagine. Sometimes those paths are horrible and sad, and sometimes they are hopeful and amazing. Not always are they paths to the future, and sometimes the paths are actually about the past but make sense when applied to the future. Books are amazing.

I'm not a very patient person in general.

Instagram is amazing, and I enjoy sharing photos there. However, I don't think it is where my photos will go to live.

It was on a bulletin board that I first learned about hacker culture, the 'Let's just break through this wall and see what's on the other side' mentality.

We were orbiting around the idea of intent and context. We would take the bus into work, and if you said, 'Here's a shirt you might like,' and I open it on my mobile phone, I'm not going to pull out my credit card and wallet. We thought, 'How does someone do this? An e-mail to yourself, or you try to remember?'

A lot of people are buying things on the Internet - not just white men.

When you have a good vision and a very large capability of impact, that's very powerful.

I'm a white male in power. In many cases, I'm the enemy.

You can tell charlatans when they say 'big' in front of everything.

My parents are very supportive: they helped redirect my technology attitude and my punkness into positive things.

We didn't want to waste time by sending our volunteers to Republicans; we sent them to the undecided.

The advice I used to give to engineers I hired was, 'Don't eat the pizza.' Sometimes when you walk into these high-pressure environments, it's, like, doughnuts everywhere and all these little cakes.

I really think we have a future ahead of us where chat is obviously a big part of it, but I don't think the context of having that little assistant in your pocket is necessarily the only place where it will be.

Advice is always awesome because it never makes any sense when you compare it all together. It always contradicts other advice. I love advice.

One of my favourite books about hackers is 'Masters of Deception' about this hacking group in the 1990s. Many of them didn't come from wealthy families. These are kids that are very intelligent; they just happen to be misdirected.

I spent a lot of time hacking, doing all this stuff, building websites, building communities, working all the time, and then a lot of time drinking, partying, and hanging out. And I had to choose when to do which.

If there's one thing about Chicago, we take care of our own.

Taking time to do something slower than you normally would is a privilege that should not be ignored.

When I give talks, I often quote from a button I received at a Google event: Always Be Creative. I use it to illustrate how important creativity is in technology and business.

I try and wake up relatively early. I listen to some music and check Twitter. I also make sure I weigh myself and check how long I slept. I do that because knowing that data seems better than not knowing it.

Data is what powers all of us and our lives. It is ubiquitous among our now-connected lives. I love how it is now the oxygen of our Internet world.