Thread by @trengriffin

1/ "Brilliance can’t be taught, but the operational stuff can be. Do you have operational instincts? Who cares? If you work with me for six months, I can give you enough prowess and process to be able to go run something, and do something with it.” Bill Campbell (AKA "coach").

2/“You need a leader. You have to go out and recruit the best person you can who knows how to create an innovation culture. Give that person license to hire. Get yourself some teams. Recruit people who have the ‘DNA’ that you want.” Coach Campbell

3/ “He or she doesn’t need to be personally the most innovative person, but he or she needs to know how to foster innovation. It is all about people. If you have the right people, you will end up with the right culture.” Coach Campbell

4/ “If you don’t have the right product and you don’t time it right, you are going to fail. Great product and great people is the whole answer. Growth is the goal and it comes through having innovation. Empowered engineers are the single most important thing.” Coach Campbell

5/ "I want salespeople who use a quantitative process and say, ‘Let me tell you what our stuff does and let me tell you based on our work what this can do for you regarding your productivity.'” Coach Campbell

6/ “Blue suit, white shirt, red tie. Unfortunately, these people all failed miserably as CEOs because they didn’t know the product and they didn’t understand the technology; all they could do was sell.” Coach Campbell

7/ “I don’t get involved unless the founder is passionate and wants to create something durable. I am an operating guy. I help founders think about what their business should look like, how they should organize it, and how to think about management.” Coach Campbell

8/ I have not read this book yet, but the topic is a great one. Drops April 16. "Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell" amazon.com/Trillion-Dolla… I have a chapter on Coach Campbell in my most recent book.

9/ People like Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Larry Page of Google have all been coached by Bill Campbell at one point.

Bill Gurley: “When you have Bill coaching the entrepreneurs, it’s like having extra wildcards in a game of five-card draw.”