Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs.

The size of your audience doesn't matter. What's important is that your audience is listening.

Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I'm sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It's the third part that people tend to forget. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.

Develop a good filing system.

I don't suffer from an abundance of politeness.

A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care.