Like technical debt, management debt is incurred when you make an expedient, short-term management decision with an expensive, long-term consequence.… - Ben Horowitz

This is not checkers; this is motherfuckin’ chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves, the market moves, the people move. As a result, like playing three-dimensional chess on Star Trek, there is always a move. You think you have no moves? How about taking your company public with $2 million in trailing revenue and 340 employees, with a plan to do $75 million in revenue the next year? I made that move. I made it in 2001, widely regarded as the worst time ever for a technology company to go public. I made it with six weeks of cash left. There is always a move.

there’s no recipe for motivating teams when your business has turned to crap.

important execution details required to run a company, such as process design, goal setting, structured accountability, training, and performance management.