No. 334 | May 29, 2026
Welcome to Friday Five, a short dose of ideas for the weekend.
Sonny Rollins became one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time by focusing on the work in front of him each day. Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz operated with a similarly simple principle: never make financial mistakes. Kevin Kelly spent decades thinking about what actually lasts. Tobi Lütke never wrote a book, but much of his thinking about business and craft feels just as timeless.
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This Week in Friday Five
🎵 Sonny Rollins
💬 Doing what must be done today
📝 Dietrich Mateschitz on avoiding debt
📚 Kevin Kelly on timeless life advice
🎙️ Tobi Lütke on building Shopify
Music of the Week
Sonny Rollins was one of the most influential jazz saxophonists of all time.
Across a seven-decade career, he recorded more than 60 albums—an astonishing output for any artist.
Nicknamed the “Saxophone Colossus,” Rollins helped shape modern jazz and later received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Start with “God Bless the Child,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” and “St. Thomas.”
Quotes of the Week
Doing what must be done today instead of outsourcing your life to tomorrow. These quotes capture that idea:
“You could be good today. Instead you choose tomorrow.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.” — Benjamin Franklin
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.” — Leonardo da Vinci
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” — Pablo Picasso
“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln
Article of the Week
“Don’t confuse the creativity of the Red Bull brand with our business conduct. I was raised with the motto: don’t go into debt. At Red Bull, we spend the money we’ve earned, not the money we might earn someday.” — Dietrich Mateschitz
Dietrich Mateschitz and Chaleo Yoovidhya each invested $500,000 to launch Red Bull. Both refused to take on debt. Their operating principle was simple: never spend beyond what you earn.
To fund an unproven energy drink company with his own savings required conviction. Mateschitz believed the product would work.
That confidence came from thinking long-term. He built resilience into the business from the beginning. There would be setbacks, but the business could survive them.
In an era obsessed with speed and growth at all costs, Red Bull looked almost irrational. No debt. No reckless expansion. No dependence on future capital markets.
The business endured because it avoided catastrophic mistakes.
For more on Mateschitz, Red Bull, and avoiding debt, read:
📝 The Red Bull Playbook: Building Red Bull Without Debt
Book of the Week
“The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.” — Kevin Kelly
As he approached 70, Kevin Kelly began writing down advice he wished he had known earlier in life for his adult children.
The list kept growing. Eventually, it became Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier.
The advice works because it focuses on enduring human problems: attention, relationships, work, money, purpose, and time.
Lessons that stayed with me:
- Different is better
- The best way to learn anything is to teach it
- Don’t let someone else’s urgency become your emergency
- Aim to be respected, not liked
- You don’t need more time; you need more focus
- What you do on bad days matters more than what you do on the good days
- To keep succeeding, focus on the process instead of the outcome
- The greatest killer of happiness is comparison
- Invest small amounts consistently over long periods of time
- Half of being educated is learning what you can ignore
- Do more work that feels like play and looks like work to others
For more on Kevin Kelly and his advice, read:
📚 Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier
Podcast of the Week
Tobi Lütke is the co-founder and longtime CEO of Shopify.
Under his leadership, Shopify evolved from an online snowboard shop into one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms.
After dropping out of high school in Germany, Lütke moved to Canada, started an online snowboard business, and eventually built Shopify alongside his co-founders.
On David Senra’s podcast, Lütke talks about growing up in Germany, building Shopify, and how he thinks about business, craftsmanship, and decision-making. The conversation gets into the details in the best possible way.
For more on Lütke, Shopify, and building an e-commerce business, listen:
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