I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms.

Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane.

When a politician bends the truth or a CEO breaks a promise, trust takes a beating.

Strategy is, above all else, the search for above average returns.

Like a child star whose fame fades as the years advance, many once-innovative companies become less so as they mature.

In an ideal world, an individual's institutional power would be correlated perfectly with his or her value-add. In practice, this is seldom the case.

Never before has the gap between what we can imagine and what we can accomplish been smaller.