The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.

I can now share my weaknesses, my fears, and my shortcomings.

Margit Wennmachers,

As a CEO, there is no such luxury. As CEO,

No track record, no portfolio companies, no nothing. But people knew us and they especially knew Marc. So I said, “Rather than trying to create a totally new brand from scratch, why not just use your brand?”

Michael Ovitz.

The answer is that your loyalty must go to your employees—the people who report to your executives.

analyzing whether you should sell your company, a good basic rule of thumb is if (a) you are very early on in a very large market and (b) you have a good chance of being number one in that market, then you should remain stand-alone. The reason is that nobody will be able to afford to pay what you are worth, because nobody can give you that much for

like Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris, they would keep their minds, but get new bodies.