If you're not embarrassed when you ship your first version, you waited too long.
Interpretation
It's important to take action and not delay due to fear of imperfection.
This quote by Matt Mullenweg emphasizes the importance of taking initiative and launching projects without overthinking or striving for perfection. If you are overly concerned about how your initial effort will be received, it likely means you have hesitated too long, and true learning and improvement come from putting your ideas into action and refining them over time.
In practice
In a startup meeting to motivate the team to launch their MVP.
One thing about open source is that even the failures contribute to the next thing that comes up. Unlike a company that could spend a million dollars in two years and fail and there's nothing really to show for it, if you spend a million dollars on open source, you probably have something amazing that other people can build on.
Usage is like oxygen for ideas. That means every moment you're working on something without it being in the public it's actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.
We focus on two things when hiring. First, find the best people you can in the world. And second, let them do their work. Just get out of their way.
People are not afraid of failure, they're afraid of blame.
It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.
Work with the raw material you have, namely you, and never let up.
The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.
You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.
Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.