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Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.

Aaron Levie

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
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
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
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
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 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
Your product should sell itself, but that does not mean you don’t need salespeople.
AARON LEVIE

Doe Mean Need People Product Sales
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
Start with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a ‘toy’ you’re definitely onto something.
AARON LEVIE

Definite Expand People Simple Toy
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
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
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
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
Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.
AARON LEVIE

Building Business Disruption Model Oriented Technology
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
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
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
In a user lead model, users are bringing in their own technology… and you can build software then, around the user.
AARON LEVIE

Bringing Building Lead Model Software Technology
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
Startups often win because it’s easier to see what comes next when you don’t have to worry about maintaining what came last.
AARON LEVIE

Come Easier Last Startup Winning Worry
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable
I’m obsessed with speed. I’m always asking myself, ‘Why can’t we do things faster? Why can’t it happen more efficiently? Why is this requiring three meetings instead of one?’
AARON LEVIE

Asking Brilliant Fast Obsessed Three
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.
AARON LEVIE

Done Little Much Person Process
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
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
Companies have never won. You’re always either fighting for survival, or fighting for relevance.
AARON LEVIE

Entrepreneur Fighting Relevance Survival
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

Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.

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Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.

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