Jobs would often test people, asking them, “how many things have you said no to?” Ive was up to the task of answering, only he didn’t mean it, and Jobs read right through him.
I would have these sacrificial things, because I wanted to be very honest about it. And so I’d say, “Well, I said no to this and no to that.” But he knew that I wasn’t
At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.
And, as Jeff's annual letter to shareholders has emphasized from the very first instance, Amazon's mission is to be the world's most customer-centric company. One way to continue to find vectors for growth is to stay attached at the hip to the fickle nature of customer unhappiness, which they're always quite happy to share under the right... See more
As the former CEO of both Data Domain and ServiceNow, two successful tech companies in recent years, I am often confronted with questions: what did you guys do? What is the secret sauce? How did you do it? We never thought of ourselves as that different. We certainly didn’t think we had stumbled on a silver bullet. Did we just get incredibly lucky... See more
Unfortunately, that flabby life is the default we slide into without a deliberate struggle against it. You are always getting weaker unless you’re making efforts to get stronger. If you aren’t finding new ways to push your physical and mental limits, or at least maintain their capacity, they are shrinking. Your capacity is unlikely to be stretched... See more
One of the most important principles in Silicon Valley is that "you make what you measure." It means that if you pick some number to focus on, it will tend to improve, but that you have to choose the right number, because only the one you choose will improve; another that seems conceptually adjacent might not. For example, if you're a university... See more
Companies should consider bringing on automation engineers.
Their job would be to use AI to speed up company workflows.
- write reusable prompts
- make custom ChatGPT plugins
- create AI agents for company processes
- build AI... See more