Adam D’Angelo is a computer scientist, entrepreneur and investor. In the late nineties, he co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg while students at Harvard University. He served as CTO of Facebook. In 2009 Adam left to start Quora, a social Q&A website that has grown into one of the top sites in its category with 120 million monthly users.
In 2014, after five years away from an operational role in running a business, Adam returned to lead Quora full time again while investing in new projects such as Asana (a collaboration software company) and Zoona (an international money transfer service).
In this blog post, we look at some famous quotes from Adam D’Angelo and how we can implement them in different aspects of our lives.
1. “If you don’t think your life will be better in five years, you won’t get very far.”
I like this quote because it speaks a lot about believing in yourself and not giving up on your dreams. To pursue any goal or dream, you usually need to make sacrifices. If you don’t believe that your current situation will be better in five years, then it’s unlikely you’ll make an effort to change it.
2. “You shouldn’t spend more than 40 hours a week on Facebook.”
The idea behind this was that Adam believes that if you want to succeed in life, your time should not be spent doing things that do not matter. Of course, this does not mean that you should not enjoy yourself and your life. All it means is that you need to be very conscious about how you spend your time and where the results of your actions will take you in the future.
3. “The best way to predict the future is to build it.”
You can never know what the future will be like or what you want to do with your life. The only way of finding out is by actually trying different paths and seeing which one fits you the best. If we sit back and wait for things to happen, we might as well resign ourselves to the fact that our future will not be as bright as it could have been having we tried to build it.
4. “I think the reason we don’t have more female CEOs is that not enough women want the job.”
This is one of my favourite quotes from Adam because it’s very true and, in a sense, also very empowering. If you really want something and you work hard enough for it, there’s nothing that will stop you from achieving it. Whether that’s becoming a CEO or something else, it’s your choice what you want to do with your life.
5. “The best way to get out of a hole is first to stop digging.”
This quote reminds me of some people I know and how they keep making the same mistakes repeatedly. The problem is that if you keep digging, eventually, you’ll get to a point where there’s no way out of your mess. This usually happens when the consequences are so big that they might ruin your life completely. If you are in debt, stop borrowing money immediately.
6. “If you have an idea, go for it. Some so many people can help you.”
If you believe in your idea enough, go for it. What’s holding you back? This is one of the most powerful quotes on this list, and it’s filled with so much good advice. Whenever I have an idea or something I want to do, I feel like there’s so much going on in my head that it’s hard to start. Unfortunately, this is the problem with most people, and they never get anywhere.
7. “When you have a lot of money, it’s very easy to give a lot of money away.”
I think this quote speaks for itself. It would be great if all people thought like this because then we wouldn’t have all these problems in the world. So, if you’re not a millionaire yet, keep working hard to become one, and when you do, don’t forget about donating some of your money to charities.
8. “You will encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.”
This quote is very similar to the second one, but I felt it was important to mention it separately. Life is hard, and we all fail at some point in our lives. However, if you want to be successful, your only option is not to give up and keep trying no matter what happens. You can never win if you don’t fight.
9. “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
This quote goes hand in hand with the one above it. If you want to succeed, you need to stop caring about what others think and do things your way. Instead, you must try to focus on yourself because if not, success will always be just out of your reach.
10. “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love and let it come in.”
This quote reminds me a lot of the Dalai Lama because it’s very spiritual and, in a way, also very true. Sometimes we forget about the people around us and only focus on ourselves. It’s easy to do so because we all have problems and things that bother us, but your life will become much better if you start caring about others.
11. “Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.”
This is one of my favourite quotes from Adam because it can apply to almost every situation in life. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t think about how much you’ll miss junk food because if you do, it will be very hard for you to lose weight. In school or at work, your grades and position don’t define who you are as a person, so don’t let them get between you and success.
12. “I’ve always believed that you get more bees with honey than with vinegar.”
Adam said this when he was asked what he thought about the saying, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”. He later expanded on his comment and said that if you want to get somewhere in life, you need to learn to be nice to people and help them instead of being a jerk. Also, if you want to be successful, it pays off more if you focus on helping others first.
13. “If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.”
Even though Adam himself wasn’t saying this quote, the person who said it is very special. Below this quote, you can see that Adam put a picture of his grandmother with the quote. He did this because the woman who said it is his greatest inspiration in life, and I think everyone can agree that she knows what she’s talking about.
14. “If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.”
This quote is one of the most important because it shows us that even if we don’t make a profit with everything we do, we should keep doing what we’re doing. Of course, we all want to make money and live comfortably, but sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture and not focus on the money. If you’re doing something that makes you happy, it’s worth more than any amount of money in the world.
15. “If I were down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on books.”
This is another important quote because not many people share this opinion. So many people these days would rather spend their last dollar on something they could use to survive, but if you take a step back and think about it, books are priceless. You can get entertainment from other things, but there’s nothing that comes close to the knowledge you gain from books. It might not be enough to save your life in some situations, but I’m sure it will help you in a lot of ways.