During normal times or boom times, there are some parts of the business that are going to so well, that that can cover for weakness and other parts of the business. What happens during recessions, is you have less windfalls just helping you cover mistakes. You have to be more careful about not making mistakes.

The thing that changes your professional life, your capabilities, your learning, your understanding, your opportunity flow, your ability to make things happen, is the center relationships you have with powerful and effective people around you in the industry, in the activity that you want to be doing.

Companies hire a lot during boom times because they're trying to adequately accelerate into the future.

When I'm raising money, this fundraising, I'm thinking about the next fundraising. I'm thinking how I'm set up for it.

When thinking about how to deploy kind of professional and social networking into your business, it's really not a question of if, it's a question of when. And the reason is, just think about the fact that those businesses that adopt new technologies to operate efficiently and use them to get a competitive edge are the businesses that in fact, you know, it becomes one more competitive advantage. Whether it's a fax machine or a mobile phone or a new way of doing financing or any of these things, you know, these are key things to do.

I'm sympathetic to the people who go, "Whoa, we'd like to have the benevolent, wise dictator. It will all work much more efficiently," but the reason that we remain staunch democrats - with a small d - is it's a decades long, it's a centuries long, it's a country long process for being inclusive.

Finished ought to be an F-word for all of us. We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers.