Quotes from Harper Reed

In technology startups, there's a lot of winging it.

I would still describe myself as a hacker. I still remember feeling the magic, the sense of discovery, when I first connected to a bulletin board. It seemed like the world was somehow brighter, the greens were greener. Like I'd stepped through a portal to the other side. I knew back then that things would never be the same again for me.

I want to involve creativity more in technology and business. It is obvious that for us to be successful, a healthy relationship with creativity is needed.

When I look for new books, I often struggle to find things that challenge and entertain me. This has caused me to spend a number of cycles thinking about where I can get the serendipitous book discovery experience that we had in physical book stores.

TechStars offers a network, and being a part of that network is an awesome opportunity.

Security is very difficult. You have to be very careful about security, and I think oftentimes people just forget; they don't invest in the right things.

One of the things that I used to make sure I'd do was to always make sure I'd have dinner at home because I needed that disconnect from work. Even when it was crazy, I'd go home at, like, 10 o'clock and have dinner. That way, I had time where I could decompress a little bit and then go back in.

Let's not project our fears onto others.

Mobile usage is going up; mobile conversion is not.

Crowdsourcing is the future. However, if you don't trust your users to build/create/upload awesome work, they won't trust you with their crowd capital.

Books have literally powered most of my life. Whether as a stress relief when doing hard things or as vacation fodder, they are a constant and important part of my life.

I would say Silicon Valley and New York have inflated salaries.

If you want to go and build a company that exists in Silicon Valley, then you should go and do it there. But if you want to build a company that is Australian, that represents your culture and your being, then you should do it in Sydney.

I think there are a lot of hurdles between a normal consumer brand figuring out their mobile strategy - let alone their chat app strategy - and programming a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

I have to say that you don't really know stress until you know that the path of the free world is resting a little bit on your shoulders.

I never would wish technology failing on any sort of opponent or enemy.

Very smart people are often tricked by hackers, by phishing. I don't exclude myself from that. It's about being smarter than a hacker. Not about being smart.