Dot the i's, cross the t's, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.

If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?

Forget loyalty. Or at least loyalty to one's corporation. Try loyalty to your Rolodex-your network-instead.

In today's economy there are no experts, no 'best and brightest' with all the answers. It's up to each one of us. The only way to screw up is to not try anything.

Are you placing enough interesting, freakish, long shot, weirdo bets?

The 'value added' for most any company, tiny or enormous, comes from the Quality of Experience provided.

My half-baked reading of history is that we continue to go through these waves of entrepreneurial explosion followed by merger mania and consolidation. Out of that come big sluggish companies that eventually collapse under the weight of what they've created, and are killed off by the next wave of entrepreneurs.