David Ulevitch

When people ask me, 'Are you happy?' I respond with, 'You've asked the wrong question.' There is a deep kind of satisfaction you get from building a company. This kind of satisfaction transcends happy, sad, hard, or easy. I seek satisfaction. I want to be positively disruptive.

Running a successful, growing company in Silicon Valley can create an ironic sort of depression and delusion. The better you're doing, the higher the stakes, and higher expectations for you to win. Maybe that's why people say it's so hard. But that doesn't make it hard. That just makes it distracting.

If you are someone like Jeff Koons, and you have to work out how to make a big chrome heart or something, then there are lots of people and a big production involved. The money is more natural somehow. For me, I am just on my own in the studio, trying to make things work. One thing is sure: it doesn't make painting any easier.