ron’s most recent Quotables

You've gotta start with the customer experience, and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and figure out where you're gonna sell it.

Building software is [...] how much scaffolding can you erect before the whole thing collapses under its own weight. [...] It's about managing complexity.

All code breaks. Great code breaks well.

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

Oh my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.

It’s only work if somebody makes you do it

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

I got a new dog; he's a paranoid retriever. He brings back everything 'cause he's not sure what I threw him.

I've been getting into astronomy, so I installed a skylight. The people who live above me are furious.

I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

My job is to write jokes. I sit in a hotel room and when I think of something funny, I write it down. If the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of wasn't funny.

When I wear t-shirts I can only wear v-necks because my neck is very fragile. I cannot wear regular neck shirts, it hurts. And I especially hate turtle necks. Like, wearing a turtle neck is like being strangled - by a really weak guy - all damn day. If you wear a turtle neck and a backpack, its like a weak midget trying to bring you down.

Never trust anyone who's more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

Okay men, we're going in. Stay low, keep behind cover, and if you run out of ammunition, shoot outside the battlefield to reload.

Microformats are the Urban Dictionary of HTML.

I want to start a conversation with you about the next chapter of one-for-one. What’s inside this box is not as important as what it represents. It represents that we are no longer a shoe company, we are a one-for-one company.... [Its unveiling] will be our first step in meeting the rest of those needs around the world.

Who is Tom? There is no Tom. If we sell a pair of shoes today, we give away a pair of shoes tomorrow. Originally we thought of “Tomorrow’s Shoes,” but I could only fit “TOMS” on the label. I had no idea everybody would want to meet him. There is no Tom; it’s an idea for a better tomorrow.

She explained that those 3 boys were her sons, and for the past year her sons had been sharing a single pair of shoes. Her oldest son had been walking to school, coming home, giving his shoes to his brother, and he had to wait until Thursday to go to school again. Now all of her sons could go to school every day and they got to walk there together.

People always ask me, when I had the idea for TOMS, did it change my life? As romantic and noble as it is, no it did not change my life. But when I went to Argentina on that first shoe-drop, it did change my life.