How Should You Manage Your Stock Option Plan?

“I was expecting an offer of three percent,” Joe said to me. I’d been recruiting Joe since before we got our funding, and, now, two years after we closed our funding, we had offered Joe 0.75% stock options to become a Senior Scientist. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click…

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Who You Should Never Add As A Co-Founder?

“I just bought a unit in new The Millennium building, up in the City,” my co-founder, “Ken”, said to me. “You should check it out!” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Really,” I said. “I thought you were going to buy a house on the peninsula, closer to…

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How Do You Evaluate A Potential Technical Co-Founder?

I considered a lot VP Engineering/CTO candidates before Jeroen agreed to join me as co-founder. The candidates were the good, the bad, and the ugly. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] There were a lot of near misses where the fit just wasn’t there or something wasn’t quite…

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How Can You Keep Your Great Engineers From Quitting?

“Brett, I wanted to let you know I am going to retire,” Dave said to me. “What? Why!” I said getting my bearings. “You can’t retire! You’re too young to retire.” “I don’t want to retire,” Dave said. “But I’m being pushed out by ‘Ted’.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can…

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Are You Better Off With An Older Team or A Younger Team?

“So, you’re thinking of going the young route,” Bruce Wooley, who was the dean of the electrical engineering department at Stanford, said to me. One of Bruce’s past students had introduced us, and we were having coffee. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] I told Bruce I was…

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What Are The Six Rules For Building Loyal Teams

 “It was my fault. I screwed up,” I told Maxim Integrated Products CEO, Jack Gifford. “You should be screaming at me, not him!” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I didn’t want Steve (my boss) to take the beating for my screw-up. I wanted Gifford to tear into…

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What Are The Warning Signs Of A Bad Co-Founder?

Do you think it’s a good idea to propose marriage after your second date? Good, I didn’t think so. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. The best analogy for deciding on cofounders is dating. In fact, a cofounder relationship is more intense than a marriage: You’re working in…

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What Are The Secrets To Building A 10X Engineering Team?

The first presentation I did about my company for the venture capital fund where I was an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) was titled, “Where are the engineers?.” The point I was trying to drive home to the partnership was simple: The success or failure of my company would rest on our ability to recruit elite…

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Why You Shouldn’t Hire Engineers That Are Jerks

No matter how good you think they might be, don’t do it! “Why are we interviewing this guy?” I asked Jeroen, our VP Engineering. “Look at his resume, he’s bounced from one company to the next.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I  can help. Click here.] “’Terry’s’ a really talented engineer,” Jeroen…

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