I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

The man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away

Learn to sell. In business you're always selling - to your prospects, investors and employees. To be the best salesperson put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you're selling. Don't sell your product. Solve their problems.

The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.

When it's too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley.

Perhaps without that adversity I might not have been able to preserve later on when my financial burdens were redoubled. I learned then how to keep problems from crushing me. I refused to worry about more than one thing at a time, and I would not let useless fretting about a problem, no matter how important, keep me from sleeping.