We are all prisoners of our past to some extent. We bring our frame of reference, shaped by our unique combination of experiences, into any new role. But the most valuable leaders are those who can combine the scrappiness of a start‐up leader with the organizational and diplomatic discipline needed in a big company. Those who can scale up or scale

One thing he said really stuck with me. He said that when he was recruiting he looked for people who were smart, humble, hardworking, and collaborative. That’s what we needed. Those four are especially valuable in combination, because if you have just two of the four it can be a disaster.

A person who values the team can share credit and subsume his own interests in a way that most others can’t. Reflecting on what went well or how amazing we are doesn’t get us anywhere, except maybe to where we are right now. But we want to go further, we want more, we want to continue to improve.