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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.

Aaron Levie

Focus too much on the near-term and you won’t get tomorrow’s customers, focus too much on the long-term and you won’t get today’s.
AARON LEVIE

Focus Long Term Today Tomorrow
My workday begins around 11 A.M., with a cup of black coffee in each hand. If I had more hands, there would be more coffee.
AARON LEVIE

Begin Black Coffee Cup Hand Workday
Uber is a $3.5 billion lesson in building for how the world *should* work instead of optimizing for how the world *does* work
AARON LEVIE

Billion Doe Instead Optimize Uber World
If you’re waiting for encouragement from others, you’re doing it wrong. By the time people think an idea is good, it’s probably too late.
AARON LEVIE

Encouragement Idea People Thinking Wait Wrong
If people don’t think the odds are against you, you’re doing it wrong.
AARON LEVIE

Against Odd People Thinking Wrong
You intentionally start small, because you will not be able to compete with an incumbent… because the incumbent is always going to go for the full solution.
AARON LEVIE

Able Building Incumbent Intention Start
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

Change Jobs Latter Sometime Tried Way
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
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable
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.
AARON LEVIE

Dangerous Important Incredible People Politics Thinking
Start with the assumption that the best way to do something is not the way it’s being done right now.
AARON LEVIE

Assumption Best Done Start Way
The best technology is aimed far enough in the future that it stands out, but close enough to the present that it blends in.
AARON LEVIE

Close Enough Out Present Standing Technology
The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.
AARON LEVIE

Adopt Benefits Customer Friction Kind Technology
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
Opportunity lives at the intersection of what people need tomorrow and can be just barely built today.
AARON LEVIE

Bare Build Need Opportunity People Tomorrow
There’s a lot of pride that business owners have. It’s actually really critical that pride and ownership extends to everyone in the organization. I think of everyone is in the same boat in driving the company forward.
AARON LEVIE

Extend Organization Ownership Pride Thinking

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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