A Quote by Troy Carter

I'm a very commonsense guy - I just look at the viability of the idea, if I feel the team has the ability to execute the idea. I also look at the investment syndicate, the size of the market, and then a lot of gut married on top of it.
The Internet is just a chance to do something. Nowhere else can you go, 'I have an idea, I can write this idea, and I can execute this idea.'
We now have a better biological and psychological understanding of our moral thinking. The idea that we should do what maximizes happiness sounds very reasonable, but it often conflicts with our gut reactions. Philosophers have spent the last century or so finding examples where our intuition runs counter to this idea and have taken these as signals that something is wrong with this philosophy. But when you look at the psychology behind those examples, they become less compelling. An alternative is that our gut reactions are not always reliable.
When you're an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there's a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.
The idea of self-effacement, the idea that you feel so powerless that the only tiny morsel of power you have is over your own ability to deny yourself food - that to me is a very profound and sad methodology and indicator of how powerless a lot of people feel in this world. That they will turn that onto themselves until they are physically smaller. I think it's affected my worldview a lot - just being sensitive and empathetic towards the ways people want to be small. I don't wish smallness for anyone.
Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea.
Every idea that comes to mind I execute, or I look for outlets to put out ideas.
There's this idea that it's all natural, but everything's been staged to look natural. It is also an invention. It's just that my inventions are different. I often get asked about my artifice, but isn't fashion based on the idea that we can create a fantasy?
Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.
Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.
The thing about angel investing, which I get into in the book a lot is, you actually don't have to understand the idea, you don't have to know if the idea is going to win, you just need to know if a founder's going to win in their life. I can just tell by looking at somebody if they'll be successful in their life. I don't even have to have a conversation. I just look at their eyes while they're talking and it becomes very clear to me.
To a lot of people, I might just be the guy who went No. 1 in the draft. Or the guy who lost his job to Colin Kaepernick. Or the guy who helped turn a 2-14 Chiefs team into a back-to-back division champ... but then couldn't put them over the top.
I have an investment in not being crazy. I have a real investment in seeing things straight. This runs counter to that investment, so it required giving up an idea of myself, the idea being that I had control.
It isn't easy for me to have contact with the industry, because it is so outdated. Look at General Motors, look at -Mercedes, look at Chrysler, look at Porsche, look at BMW . . . They are all building cars from yesterday! Nobody has an idea how the car of tomorrow should look. I've built them already. I have the prototypes in my exhibition, but they won't do it.
If I can convince people that their idea is great, and know inside that their idea was actually a little my idea, then I feel okay. I don't feel too douchey.
If you feel comfortable in what you're wearing, you'll look your best, and I think that's a really important idea. Sometimes, whether it's fashion or beauty, things are on-trend, and they look beautiful on the runway, but when I apply them to myself, it doesn't look the way it should.
Here is this ability to explore ideas, but with minute changes, and then look at the results. Often you get so excited about what you're doing that you think, "Oh, wow, this is just great." And you look at it a week later and you realize you'd been excited by the act of creation, but what you've created is not really exciting when you look at it in cold blood. And so that, to me, is a valuable lesson also.
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