There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

When you're making a critical decision, you have to understand how it's going to be interpreted from all points of view. Not just your point of view, not just the person you're talking to, but the people that aren't in the room. Everybody else.

I emphasize to C.E.O.s, you have to have a story in the minds of the employees. It's hard to memorize objectives, but it's easy to remember a story.

Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they're hallucinating

Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.

It's quite possible for an executive to hit her goal for the quarter by ignoring the future.

As companies move to web-based computing they get a lot more servers, which are difficult to manage and control. All kinds of problems can arise - security, quality and worms.