Marc Andreessen on Success Quotes

"A great career is built on a series of prioritized risks."

"The cost of failure is much lower than the cost of not trying."

"The standard advice is 'follow your passion.' This is terrible advice. You should follow your contribution."

"If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to work harder than everyone else."

"Execution is everything. The idea is just a multiplier of execution."

"If you aren't being told you're crazy at least once a week, you're probably not thinking big enough."

"The most successful people I know are the ones who are constantly learning."

"The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go after it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often step out of the way."

"Being a contrarian is only useful if you are also right."

"Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so."

"I think that the minute that you have a backup plan, you've admitted that you're not going to succeed."

"Prioritize high-leverage activities that create long-term value over short-term dopamine hits."

"The difference between success and failure is often just the ability to stay focused."

"You create wealth by building things that are useful to other people at scale."

"You have to be willing to fail in order to succeed."

"Don't wait for permission to be great. Just start building."

"Great founders are often people who have a very high tolerance for pain."

"Success is a function of hard work and luck."

"The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and the drive to make it happen."

"The world is a very distracting place, and it’s only getting more distracting. The ability to focus is a superpower."

"Winning in tech requires being right and being non-consensus."

"Motivation is easy when you realize that technology is the only way to get more from less."

"You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one who does what you do."

"Winning is about creating value where none existed before."

"The future is a choice, and choosing it requires boldness."

"You have to be contrarian and right to get the big returns on risk."

"Wealth follows the ability to solve a problem for a million people at once."

"Prioritize building a personal brand through your work, not your words."

"Output is the only thing that matters."

"The intersection of what you are good at and what the world needs is where passion actually becomes useful."

"The world is a very fluid place and the opportunity to plan is often an illusion."

"The most successful people I know don't have a 10-year plan; they have a 10-minute plan."

"The risk of being wrong is simply the cost of the opportunity to be right."