You simply cannot invest intelligently in revenue generation if you do not understand how to ramp effectiveness and make the underlying economics work. It should be obvious that a sales force that loses money will only accelerate cash burn—in the absence of deep pockets, not a game to be played for very long.

I'd go as far as to say that company culture is the only enduring, sustainable form of differentiation. These days, we don't have a monopoly for very long on talent, technology, capital, or any other asset; the one thing that is unique to us is how we choose to come together as a group of people, day in and day out.

It is remarkable how little our strategy changed from dollar zero to a billion in sales. The most important thing we did throughout the journey: resist the ever-present temptation to muck with the strategy.

Also, with this source document, in-person discussions quickly accelerate past the basics and become more pointed, resulting in more productive exchanges.

Our drive for a set of values in the organization came about gradually, as more people came into the company. We started writing them down and describing them: Respect Excellence Customer Integrity Performance Execution The first letter of each of the six values spells the word R-E-C-I-P-E.

After suffering through a few instances of this mismatch at Data Domain, we adjusted our search algorithm and began looking for candidates who did not have the resume yet but did have the potential and desire for a career break to get to the next level. We called them "athletes": candidates with the right aptitude and behavior profile but

The famed Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter is usually associated with this term, but the basic idea goes back all the way to the works of Karl Marx. The notion (which has experienced a recent resurgence via Clayton Christensen's writings on disruptive innovation) is that in order to create something, you have to destroy something else in the pr

I found this advice priceless. You might as well spend all your time on winning—nothing else matters. Of course, a good board wants you to do exactly that. It obviously doesn't mean you should blindly bat away all opinions coming at you, but just try them on for size and merit, and go from there. Keeping good council is strength; caving in on perce

Don't be a pleaser, and don't be an appeaser. Do what you think is right. Do anything less, and you only have yourself to blame.