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Companies have never won. You’re always either fighting for survival, or fighting for relevance.

Aaron Levie

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

Energy Focus IBM Microsoft Oracle Thinking World
Any time where the delta b/w what is possible and how things work today is at its widest, that’s an opportunity to go build new technology.
AARON LEVIE

Delta Opportunity Possible Technology Today Wide
The product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.
AARON LEVIE

Bridge Future Giant Leap Require Winning
Jeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.
AARON LEVIE

Internet Newspaper Retail Store Wrong
Entrepreneurship: 10% coach, 20% player, 30% cheerleader, 40% waterboy.
AARON LEVIE

Cheerleader Coach Entrepreneur Player Waterboy
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
Better to be too early and have to try again, than be too late and have to catch up.
AARON LEVIE

Catch Early Late Too Try Trying
When you’re doing something you’re passionate about, stress becomes a featurenot a bug.
AARON LEVIE

Bug Feature Passionate Something Stress
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
Better to be right about the trend and wrong about the implementation, than the other way around.
AARON LEVIE

Around Better Implementation Right Trend Way Wrong
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
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
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
The only way to avoid disruption is to constantly do what you would if you were just starting out.
AARON LEVIE

Constant Disruption Out Starting Way
I’m certainly not into money and prestige. For me there is simply nothing more exciting than people involved in the creation of great products. That is what drives me.
AARON LEVIE

Certain Creation Involve People Prestige Simply
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
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
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
Tip: Take the stodgiest, oldest, slowest moving industry you can find. And build amazing software for it.
AARON LEVIE

Amazing Industry Moving Slow Software Stodgiest
Look for new enabling technologies that create a wide gap between how things have been done and how they can be done.
AARON LEVIE

Done Enable Look Technology
All we’re really doing is repeating technologies that were tried 10, 20, 30 years ago… it’s just that it was too expensive, too unusable, and we didn’t have the enabling technologies to make it possible.
AARON LEVIE

Ago Done Enabling Repeat Technology Year
If every customer is using your product “correctly”, you’ll never learn anything interesting about what to do next.
AARON LEVIE

Correct Customer Interest Interesting Next
Listen to your customers, but don’t always build exactly what they’re telling you. This is a really key distinction around building enterprise software.
AARON LEVIE

Building Customer Distinction Key Listen Software Tell
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
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
Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.
AARON LEVIE

Building Business Disruption Model Oriented Technology
It’s unfortunate biologically we have to sleep.
AARON LEVIE

Biological Sleep Unfortunate

Companies have never won. You’re always either fighting for survival, or fighting for relevance.

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Companies have never won. You’re always either fighting for survival, or fighting for relevance.

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