The choice is not between hands-on or hands-off. In our research, the entrepreneurs who led their companies from start-ups into some of the greatest corporations in history generally had both a hands-on style and an empowering style. No matter how big their companies became, they remained closely connected to their people, hyper-aware of facts on the ground, and directly engaged in strategic imperatives. If you lose your voracious curiosity about tactical details, if you lose passionate interest in people and how they are feeling, if you insulate yourself in the protective cocoon of executive comforts, you may well wake up one day to discover your company has already entered a doom loop of decline and self-destruction.

I’d like to close this chapter with an essential caveat about persistence from Built to Last. Of all the paragraphs I’ve authored or co-authored in thirty years, this is one of the most essential for entrepreneurs and leaders of early-stage ventures, reproduced here as a reminder to keep firmly in mind as you build your company:

The builders of visionary companies were highly persistent, living to the motto: Never, never, never give up. But what to persist with? The company. Be prepared to kill, revise, or evolve an idea . . . but never give up on the company. If you equate the success of your company with the success of a specific idea—as many businesspeople do—then you’re more likely to give up on the company if that idea fails; and if that idea happens to succeed, you’re more likely to have an emotional love affair with that idea and stick with it too long, when the company should be moving vigorously on to other things. But if you see the ultimate creation as the company, not the execution of a specific idea . . . then you can persist beyond any specific idea—good or bad— and move toward becoming an enduring great institution.

Why I Need It

Why I Want It

What’s My Pain

Pain-Killer

I’m stuck-in-a-rut, I crave some INSPIRATION

I’m still in school or in my first cubicle. Maybe I’m trying to quit my job or start my own thing. But I don’t know my next move.

Build helps me find that spark again and again. Everyone has to find their own spark. Build tells me where to look for it.

I don’t know how to start and where I should point my compass. I want some DIRECTION

I’m always doing what everyone else is doing. I’m getting too comfortable competing for increasingly scarce resources.

Build helps me build a mental framework for the future and how to chart the shortest path to it.

I can’t relate to founders like Zuckerberg, Musk etc. I want realistic ADVICE from someone who’s been in my shoes.

I want to learn from someone I can relate to, not a Harvard or Stanford drop-out.

Tony’s path to Silicon Valley is relatable. He shares painful mistakes he’s made along the way, so that I can avoid them altogether.

Not another self-help business book! Give me a proven STRAIGHT-SHOOTER who says it like it is.

No ivory tower.

No expectation to turn around a tanker. I need small chunks that over time have a big lasting impact.

Here’s a guy who build his career from the ground up. Every step is an aggressive step forward, fueled by passion and common sense

Google Ventures, now known as GV, was an investor. They knew our financials and had always been extremely supportive, so I wasn’t worried about the number. I was worried about which teams we’d work with, what technology we’d share, what products we’d build. Nest wasn’t joining Google for the money—we were joining to accelerate our mission. So it was always mission first, money second.

Together with Google, we went through every single function—marketing, PR, HR, sales, every part of the company. We established where we could create synergies and where we couldn’t, figured out which managers would be assigned to us, how we would do the hiring, which perks people would get, which salaries they could expect, which teams would be working together closely, and how those relationships would be established.

It took a lot of time. In fact I was starting to get a lot of eye rolls. “Really, Tony? You want to get into the details of this now?” Yes, yes, I do. It’s important.

And it was—critically important and usually overlooked.

Most acquisitions are driven and overseen by bankers, and bankers only make the real money if the deal goes through, so they’re motivated to move fast and get paid. They don’t care about getting every detail of what happens to employees right. They don’t really care about cultural fit. Not deeply.

Introduction:

“First and foremost, thank you for opening this book. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed living, learning, and gathering it.