There are basically three types of people involved in VC. There’s an investor, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur.

The aggression that wins on the battlefield, in business, or in life is directed not toward people but toward solving problems, achieving goals, and accomplishing the mission.

If you sell what you do, you’re a vendor. If you sell why you do it, you’re a brand.

To have an effective organization, information must flow freely— up, down, and sideways. Authentic leaders share the complete picture with colleagues. They don't expect perfection; they insist on openness.

Our emotional wake determines the story that is told about each of us in the organization. It’s the story that’s told when we’re not in the room. It’s the story that will be told about us after we’re gone.

Make sure your conversations are casual and conversational.

I would wish you good luck in this endeavor—on your path to power. But luck has little to do with it. Instead, I wish you all the power that you seek.

The key to your values is not what you say you believe in, or even how you behave when things are going well. You really find out what your values are when you are under pressure or things are not going your way.

That’s another dichotomy: in order to help your team, sometimes you have to hurt them. Just like a doctor performing a surgery. Surgery is a brutal thing: cutting open a body and removing parts of it, then sewing it back together. But in order to save a life, a surgeon has to do just that.

Scorecards describe the mission for the position, outcomes that must be accomplished, and competencies that fit with both the culture of the company and the role.