The winners stun us not by their cleverness, but by the fact that every tiny aspect of the business is just a touch better than the norm.

When it comes to e-book playback devices and software, I have always thought that the emphasis on ergonomic concerns as a tipping point for the end-user population was misplaced.

How do you humiliate and demean someone and then expect him or her to care about product quality.

It's relatively simple. If we're not getting more, better, faster than they are getting more, better, faster, then we're getting less, no better or more worse.

Leaders trust their guts. "Intuition" is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a "soft" notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It's an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition.

OPPORTUNITY is not "knocking." It is pounding on your door.

Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse.