The higher you go in a company, the less oxygen there is, so supporting intelligent life becomes difficult.

"Patents make our product defensible." The optimal number of times to use the P word in a presentation is one. Just once, say, "We have filed patents for what we are doing." Done. The second time you say it, venture capitalists begin to suspect that you are depending too much on patents for defensibility. The third time you say it, you are holding a sign above your head that says, "I am clueless."

Greatness is won, not awarded.

"(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010." Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms.

Revolutionary products don't fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren't revised fast enough.

Unfortunately, they develop a fixed mindset that they're the most talented, and they think that continued success is a right. Problems arise because pure talent only works as long as the going is easy. Furthermore, they don't take risks because failure would harm their image of being the best, brightest, and most talented. When they do fail, they deny it or attribute it to anything but their shortcomings.

The mark of a good conversationalist is not that you can talk a lot. The mark is that you can get others to talk a lot. Thus, good schmoozer's are good listeners, not good talkers.

How fast you are moving is more important than where you are.

The key to evangelism is a great product. It is easy, almost unavoidable, to catalyze evangelism for a great product. It is hard, almost impossible, to catalyze evangelism for crap.