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Sometimes things are the way they are and can’t be changed, other times it’s because no one ever tried. Your job is to find the latter.

Aaron Levie

Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won’t tackle problems that others once failed at.
AARON LEVIE

Favor Innovation Problem Stubborn Tech
My dad is a chemical engineer, and my mom was a teacher. They were pretty serious about education, but I always thought about things a little bit differently.
AARON LEVIE

Dad Education Mom Pretty Serious Teacher
The 10% between 90% done to 100% done takes most of the time, causes most of the stress, but is all of the value.
AARON LEVIE

Cause Done Percentage Stress Time
Read these 3 books – Crossing the Chasm, Innovators Dilemma and Behind the Cloud.
AARON LEVIE

Book Building Chasm Cloud Clouds Innovator
I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that’s cliche, I don’t know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
AARON LEVIE

Achieve Cliche People Sight Thinking
A lot of being productive personally is determined by how you organize your entire business. You can’t separate those two things.
AARON LEVIE

Business Determined Organize Productive Two
The most customer-centric organizations can answer any question by deciding what’s best for the customer, without ever having to ask.
AARON LEVIE

Answer Ask Centric Customer Decide Organization
I have a lot of faults. I often interrupt in meetings. I talk too loud. I talk too fast.
AARON LEVIE

Fast Fault Loud Meeting Talk
The chance of failure is almost always better than the guarantee of never knowing.
AARON LEVIE

Always Chance Failure Guarantee Know Knowing
Everything about the enterprise, and then by definition the software the enterprise uses has changed – just in the last 5 years.
AARON LEVIE

Change Definition Enterprise Software Use Year
We’re going from a world of customized software to standardized platforms.
AARON LEVIE

Building Custom Platform Standard World
We’re enamored with the concept that there’s always a price. But sometimes, your goal is to build a great company, not sell it.
AARON LEVIE

Build Company Concept Enamore Goal Great Sometimes
Innovation is hard because solving problems people didn’t know they had & building something no one needs look identical at first.
AARON LEVIE

Build Innovation Need People Problem Solve
You can look at the cost structure of an incumbent company and discover: where are they not going to be able to drop their prices… because that business model is fundamental to the existence of the company.
AARON LEVIE

Company Cost Discover Fundamental Look Structure
When you’re doing something you’re passionate about, stress becomes a featurenot a bug.
AARON LEVIE

Bug Feature Passionate Something Stress
If you don’t go to every level of your company, you distance yourself from the marketplace and from your people.
AARON LEVIE

Company Distance Level Marketplace People

Sometimes things are the way they are and can’t be changed, other times it’s because no one ever tried. Your job is to find the latter.

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Sometimes things are the way they are and can’t be changed, other times it’s because no one ever tried. Your job is to find the latter.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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