It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about — figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job. - Ben Horowitz

out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.

Perhaps the CEO’s most important operational responsibility is designing and implementing the communication architecture for her company. The architecture might include the organizational design, meetings, processes, email, yammer, and even one-on-one meetings with managers and employees. Absent a well-designed communication architecture, information and ideas will stagnate, and your company will degenerate into a bad place to work. While it is quite possible to design a great communication architecture without one-on-one meetings, in most cases one-on-ones provide an excellent mechanism for information and ideas to flow up the organization and should be part of your design.

just when you think there are things you can count on in business, you quickly find that the sky is purple. When this happens, it usually does no good to keep arguing that the sky is blue. You just have to get on and deal with the fact that it’s going to look like Barney for a while.

Ben: “If you need me, I will come home.” Felicia: “No. Get the IPO done. There is no tomorrow for you and the company. I’ll be fine.