So, look, I read lots of books, lots of them, you know, especially when I went from programmer to a business, realizing I have to just learn business really quick. I got really dismayed with the quality of business books pretty quickly, because frankly, I think the business books are largely written by the people who have time, who are not the people who actually build companies, frankly.

Many creative people, especially the young, may feel their chaotic or disordered relationship with the world is indispensable to their creative freedom. The more anarchic, the better! However, after considerable fieldwork in this area, I have yet to find it so. I have come to understand that the muscle of the imagination is strengthened through resistance, discipline and order.

In order to grasp every opportunity, you cannot — you must not — decide your "career path" in advance. Don't have a job fixed in your sights and work backwards — it can be the road to disappointment because you risk passing up opportunities that might take you "off-course."

The second thing there was another thing I learned at Sequoia is that the culture of a business is built in the first six months by the first ten to 15 employees. These are magical, really, really important times. And I used to hear a lot even at Sequoia, a lot of entrepreneurs saying, “Hey, I'm too busy to think about culture. When we become a unicorn, when we grow, I'll worry about culture.” And for whoever has kids, it's almost like saying I'm too busy about educating my kids. When they turn 18, then I'll figure it out. Too late.

My predecessor set aside democracy to save it from a communist insurgency that numbered less than 500. Unhampered by respect for human rights, he went at it with hammer and tongs. By the time he fled, that insurgency had grown to more than 16,000. I think there is a lesson here to be learned about trying to stifle a thing with a means by which it grows.