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Plainly Put

One sentence about building things, taken apart

Topic

Money

Sentences about what a company earns, what it costs, and what it is for.

20 essays, 2010–2026

A short section, since founders’ sayings deal with money less often than with product or pace. Two of its lines play wealth down. Steve Jobs said being the richest man in the cemetery did not matter to him, and Evan Williams boiled a company’s purpose down to changing the world, building a business and having fun. Marco Arment makes a more practical point about pricing: people pay for things they like because they want those things to last. A line credited to James Cash Penney, the retailer, holds that theory is worthless until someone puts it into practice.

The newest piece, from 2026, is about paying for a company’s first months out of a founder’s own pocket, whether from savings, a credit card or a personal loan. It argues for deciding before the money goes in what would end the experiment: a sum, a date or a number that has to be reached.

2026 1 essay

  1. Borrowing to bootstrap: set the stopping rule first

2011 14 essays

  1. A theory is worth what it does in the shopJames Cash Penney
  2. Richest in the cemetery was never the goalSteve Jobs
  3. The complaint that says the price is rightPaul Graham
  4. Running out of cash is honest, but lateDavid Heinemeier Hansson
  5. Traction attracts investors, but not every good product has the kind they wantDavid Cohen
  6. The business model Instapaper runs onMarco Arment
  7. People pay to keep what they like aliveMarco Arment
  8. Three good goals that pull against each otherEvan Williams
  9. Money is the fuel for the trip, not the reason for itTim O'Reilly
  10. Building on land someone else ownsSpencer Fry
  11. Funding the future is a different job from inventing itJohn Doerr
  12. Revenue at any cost, and what the cost turned out to beMark Pincus
  13. A cash-only chain that learned to sell on creditJames Cash Penney
  14. Other people's winnings are no reason to sit at the tableTony Hsieh

2010 5 essays

  1. An investor's advice to look past the payoutAlexander Tamas
  2. Loving the work as the fallback prizeMark Cuban
  3. Setting out to change the world usually means changing a small part of itAngelo Sotira
  4. What a job teaches, and what it leaves outJames Cash Penney
  5. Edison's vote recorder and the test of a saleThomas Edison