We call it the 'Rule of Crappy People'. Bad managers hire very, very bad employees, because they're threatened by anybody who is anywhere near as good as they are.

Nokia and Research in Motion needed a modern operating system. They could have bought Palm or Android before Google did, but they didn't. Today, it's probably too late, and at the time they would have been criticized for overpaying, but as they say - shift happens.

Skype has a great engineering team, which I like to describe as 'all of Estonia.'

Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened.

Smart tech investor thinks about: a) future product roadmap, b) bottoms-up market size & growth, c) talent and skill of team. Essentially you are valuing things that have not yet happened, and the likelihood of the CEO and team being able to make them happen. Finance people find this appalling, but investors who do this well can make a lot of money.

I love what the Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a founder and a product creator, or as an investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying.

Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high