June 14, 2008

the puck

9 Comments

thepuck001.JPG
“The Puck”. Pen­cil on paper, approx. 16 x 21 inches.
“Aim for where the puck is hea­ded, not for where it is”, is a line that my friend, Fred Wil­son once quo­ted to me. It’s his per­so­nal man­tra for the Ven­ture Capi­tal busi­ness. Not hard to see why; it’s a superb thought.
[UPDATE:] Some com­men­ters below kindly tell me that this is a paraph­rase of something ori­gi­nally said by the hoc­key great, Wayne Gretzky. Rock on.

9 Responses to “the puck”

  1. fred wilson says:
    June 14, 2008 at 4:57 am

    Hugh
    Can I purchase this from you?
    Fred

  2. Paul Dunay says:
    June 14, 2008 at 5:29 am

    This is actually one of my favo­rite quo­tes which ori­gi­na­ted from the Hoc­key great — Wayne Gretzky — and it goes …
    Skate to where the puck is going, Not to where it has been

  3. Madrugada Jones says:
    June 14, 2008 at 7:03 am

    Someone a long time ago told me that was Wayne Gretzky’s approach to hoc­key — ska­ting for where the puck was hea­ding ins­tead of where it was — that made him so suc­cess­ful. What a great philosophy.

  4. hugh macleod says:
    June 14, 2008 at 10:56 am

    Fred,
    You sure can! Thanks :)
    I just pin­ged you on Twitter…

  5. Emma Kirsopp says:
    June 16, 2008 at 1:05 am

    Beau­ti­ful dra­wing!
    Actually, just wan­ted to say thanks, I really enjoy rea­ding your blog. I look for­ward to each new car­toon and have learnt a lot from what you have writ­ten about mar­ke­ting.
    Cheers
    Emma

  6. Pavan says:
    June 16, 2008 at 8:35 am

    This is quite impli­citly known to any­body wor­king on trac­king and pre­dic­tion algo­rithms. I find some of your posts exhi­la­ra­ting. In your own words, rock on.

  7. Boo says:
    June 18, 2008 at 11:00 am

    I found it bet­ter to keep your eye on the ball and not on the goal. But I’m rubbish.

  8. Bruce Lynn says:
    June 19, 2008 at 8:36 am

    The other varia­tion of this drawn from the sport of clay pigeon shoo­ting, used fre­quently by my friend and for­mer Mic­ro­soft collea­gue Gor­don Smi­llie — “Shoot ahead of the bird.” It’s all about anti­ci­pa­tion in a fast moving envi­ron­ment. In bas­ket­ball, Larry Bird was renow­ned for not pas­sing the ball to where the team­ma­tes were, but where he knew they would be.

  9. Bruce Lynn says:
    June 19, 2008 at 8:36 am

    The other varia­tion of this drawn from the sport of clay pigeon shoo­ting, used fre­quently by my friend and for­mer Mic­ro­soft collea­gue Gor­don Smi­llie — “Shoot ahead of the bird.” It’s all about anti­ci­pa­tion in a fast moving envi­ron­ment. In bas­ket­ball, Larry Bird was renow­ned for not pas­sing the ball to where the team­ma­tes were, but where he knew they would be.