Every great idea emerges out of a process of trial-and-error experimentation.

I think it is only in hindsight that you can determine whether something is a mistake or not.

I think people make innovation much more complicated than it needs to be.

In the strengthening the core job, a leader can draw on their past experiences. After all, in most cases they did the job of the people that are reporting to them! So they know when something is screwed up, they know the risks worth taking, and they know the corners to cut. But when they are creating the new, no one knows what the right answer is.

The reality is customers lie - not because they want to want to deceive you, but because they don't do a good job of predicting what they will do in the future.

It's one of the underappreciated skills required by an innovator - they have to be able to convince lots of people to do things that might not be fully rational (invest in the company, join something that is likely to fail, try a product they've never seen before), and if you can't tell a good story it is just very hard to make that happen.

I have a fear right now that what I call the advertising-narcissism complex is sucking up way too much top talent.