We would have won, but the other guys gave the deal away.” “The customer selected us technically and thinks we are the better company, but our compet… - Ben Horowitz

Mark Zuckerberg believes in innovation and he believes there can be no great innovation without great risk. So, in the early days of Facebook, he deployed a shocking motto: Move fast and break things. Did the CEO really want us to break things? I mean, he’s telling us to break things! A motto that shocking forces everyone to stop and think. When they think, they realize that if you move fast and innovate, you will break things. If you ask yourself, “Should I attempt this breakthrough? It will be awesome, but it may cause problems in the short term,” you have your answer. If you’d rather be right than innovative, you won’t fit in at Facebook.

The great football coach John Madden was once asked whether he would tolerate a player like Terrell Owens on his team. Owens was both one of the most talented players in the game and one of the biggest jerks. Madden answered, “If you hold the bus for everyone on the team, then you’ll be so late you’ll miss the game, so you can’t do that. The bus must leave on time. However, sometimes you’ll have a player that’s so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.

The key to getting to the right outcome was to keep from getting married to either the positive or the dark narrative. My friend Jason Rosenthal took over as CEO of