Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit mor… - Ben Horowitz

Why did so few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience starting companies? As these thoughts rolled around in my head, I sent Marc Andreessen an instant message: “We ought to start a venture capital firm. Our motto for general partners would be ‘some experience required’ as in some experience in founding and running companies is required to advise people who are founding and running companies.” To my surprise, he replied, “I was thinking the same thing.

Culture is not like a mission statement; you can’t just set it up and have it last forever. There’s a saying in the military that if you see something below standard and do nothing, then you’ve set a new standard.

Great CEOs build exceptional strategies for gathering the required information continuously. They embed their quest for intelligence into all of their daily actions from staff meetings to customer meetings to one-on-ones. Winning strategies are built on comprehensive knowledge gathered in every interaction the CEO has with an employee, a customer, a partner, or an investor.