“Too little process and you can’t get good work done. Too much process and you can’t get any work done. Most companies never find the middle.”

You’ll learn more in a day talking to customers than a week of brainstorming, a month of watching competitors, or a year of market research.

What happens to the Microsofts, Oracles and IBMs of the world is that when they get big enough, they don’t think they need to bring that same level of focus and energy to the end-user experience.

In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.

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.

The 10% between 90% done to 100% done takes most of the time, causes most of the stress, but is all of the value.

Jeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.

Modularize, don’t customize. Build a platform as opposed to building all of the custom technology and custom vertical experiences.

We’re going from a world of customized software to standardized platforms.

Why we do what we do: that moment when you get to see the future on your computer screen before the rest of the world.

The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

If you don’t go to every level of your company, you distance yourself from the marketplace and from your people.

In a user lead model, users are bringing in their own technology… and you can build software then, around the user.

You can keep ‘consumer’ DNA at the center of your product. That will always mean that adoption is easier.

The most customer-centric organizations can answer any question by deciding what’s best for the customer, without ever having to ask.

Opportunity lives at the intersection of what people need tomorrow and can be just barely built today.

I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it’s important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It’s best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely.

Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life…well, gradually became livable again.

To whom much is given, much is expected. I do believe this. It’s embedded in me.

Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely.

Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.

I’m a teacher still, but with a much larger classroom.

There’s a mountain of information about us. I mean there’s so much. Anyway, I’m not an intelligence person. But I just look at it and it’s a mountain of data.

People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.