Steven Chu Quotes

Almost everything I do when I approach an operational problem comes from the time I've been in space. It's a way of organizing your thoughts. We use problem-solving; what we call "what-if-ing." What if this happened? What would we do? We go over plan B, C, D, E, F, and whatever else, depending on the criticality of what we're doing. This kind of thing can be applied almost everywhere, even at home.

Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.

Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do.

I always recommend rewiring vintage lighting. It's not a bargain if your house burns down.

Game management is accomplished by staying constantly alert and then reading and reacting to potential problem situations before they materialize. It all boils down to paying attention to details.

I can't ever remember being struck by lightning when making a big decision. It's always about taking in more and more data points and making tack adjustments as you figure it out. I call customers, suppliers, industry analysts and try to get as much information as possible.

Among a great many other things that chess teaches you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing and to think just as objectively when you're in trouble.

I think about issues. I use my economic training to devise solutions.

People are irrational. What I want to do is let's take the irrational aspects out of it and let's just break this down. And you and I, let's go and see if we can't master this thing, a few steps at a time without giving up your day job, without having to give up your whole life.

Rather than reacting to every risk we hear and see, we should make an effort to discern which ones we can do something about.

Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.

You've got to be smart about tackling.

Making assumptions taught me a lot as a producer, because it's something I never do now.

You try to make the decisions that you think are best in realtime.

Valuations are always much-debated. I try to center on what is the value to us. Is it solving a problems for us? If it is, we find a way to proceed. If the valuation has been overhyped on something and it doesn't make sense, we won't. It's very simple for me. I tend not to worry too much about the valuation. It's really what the value is to us.

Life is very much about making the best decisions you can. So I think chess is very valuable.

You can't just shoot your way out of every scenario in 'Resident Evil' games. You have to use your intelligence.

Most business problems, you will have an intuitive idea on what to do.

You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. And if you can’t write an intelligent answer to those questions, don’t do it.

Always find different ways to accomplish the mission. Then run a counter-analysis and list the advantages and disadvantages. When you have done that, you are ready to make a decision.

We had the same doomsday people when we were building the MGM Grand, same people, same doomsday. You have to ask a lot of questions and listen to people, but eventually, you have to go by your own instincts.

It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. In the stock market you don't base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time.

Incorrect assumptions lie at the root of every failure. Have the courage to test your assumptions.

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.