Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.

Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on the shore telling him what to do, he still falls off the board again and again.

Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they're succeeding. It's the software equivalent of playing dead.

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.

Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.

Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.

Never put yourself in a position that will put yourself at risk if you make the wrong decision. We spent cash on everything. It's fashionable to make 'bet the company' decisions, but don't do it.