“How do you think Maxim (Integrated Products) will react when you resign?” I asked Jeroen. …

“I’d like you to be the CEO of my company,” “Ray” said to me. We were meeting for the first time outside of a Starbucks in Los Altos. Ray had spent the previous thirty minutes explaining what his company was going to do. In fact, there wasn’t even a company…

“We should be raising a $6 million round, not $12 million,” “Randy”, my co-founder, said to me. In fact, Randy was so angry about the terms of our funding that he was threatening to quit. “Let’s meet, so I can walk you through why we are better off with the…

“The talent level here is really high,” I said to the engineering candidate I was interviewing. “So, if you want to work with the best of the best, you should join us.” I was the last person to interview Melind, the closer, so to speak. Jeroen, my co-founder and VP…

“Nothing seems to faze you,” “Raul”, one of my investors, said to me during our 1:1 meeting in his office. He’d been an investor in our company for one year. Raul was pretty crusty, so I considered what he said to be a compliment. More importantly, Raul was right. I’d…

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” “Serge”, the CEO of a struggling startup, said to me. “I think I’m going to give up.” “What?” I responded. Serge’s capitulation said didn’t register on me. It was foreign to my way of thinking. Worse yet, Serge’s company wasn’t doomed…

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when I meet an early stage startup CEO who’s focused on selling their company. Inevitably, I’ll ask the CEO, “Why are you focused on a sale now?” Inevitably, the answer, more times than not, comes back as, “I’m thinking we’ll be selling the…

“You need to sign an NDA,” my co-founder, “John”, said to David, the investor we were presenting to. It was our second meeting with David, and John’s comment took me totally by surprise, but David’s response didn’t take me by surprise. David looked at our VP Engineering and said, “We…

“I like you, Brett. And I really like what you’re (company is) doing,” Jack, the Venture Capitalist, said to me. “However, I think I’ll wait until you have a VP Engineering before I invest.” In my pitch I had been upfront with Jack that we were looking for a VP…