admin | Tough Things First

Four steps to stop entrepreneurial procrastination
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I saw Warren Muller, my co-founder at Micrel, pulling an oil tray from under his automobile and pouring the...
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A Company Divided Against Itself …
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To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, a company divided against itself cannot stand. The foreshadowed collapse comes from office politics, a...
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Scaling and Asparagus
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Startups are too often like asparagus. Asparagus is an odd food. It grows very quickly (which makes it a...
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Celebrating Silicon Valley Endurance
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Silicon Valley is learning the difference between price and value, which is also the difference between bottle rocket and...
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Smarter CEOs: How to manage your presence
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Seth Godin recently identified some reasons why CEOs can be stupid, and he almost found the central theme (almost,...
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Building Boomerang Employees
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Boomerang employees are proof that your corporate culture is healthy. “I knew that Micrel was the best place that...
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How Leaders Do Better Than Their Best
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Famed Admiral Rickover once stunned Ensign Jimmy Carter (yes, a future U.S. President) who had admitted to maybe not...
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Bottle Rockets and Hoists
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Here in Silicon Valley, most startups are like bottle rockets: they fly fast, look great, explode and vanish in...
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Semiconductor Contraction
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The semiconductor industry is consolidating as it is expanding. This seemingly contradictory situation has an origin, but no end...
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Executive Ethics and the Rudderless Ship
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Entrepreneurs often provide the ethics of their entire organization. Those that don’t oversee chaos. Ethics are systems of moral...
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