C.A.Keith Quotes

Build a company that idiots could run because eventually they will.

Create tools that enable people to make decisions at the same level, ideally, of fidelity that that you would make them yourself.

You are not going to do most of the work. You shouldn't be doing most of the work... and the way you get out of doing most of the work, is you delegate.

Don't accept the excuse of complexity.

I'd actually argue forging a company is far more harder than forging a product

Ultimately, I don't believe that you can build a company without a lot of effort, and that you need to lead by example.

I don't believe ever in shared office spaces. Peter talks a little bit about this, every good startup is a cult. It's very hard to create a cult if you're sharing space with people.

I walk into a company office and I can tell often whether I'm gonna invest, as soon as I walk in.

The job of an editor is to ensure a consistent voice.

You should have a 1-on-1 roughly every 2 weeks.

The agenda should be crafted by the employee who reports to the manager not the manager.

Basically this is what you want - a high performance machine that idiots can run.

The people that work with you should generally come up with their own initiatives.

At first when you start a company, everything's gonna feel like a mess and it really should. It should feel like everyday there's a new problem, and what you're doing is fundamentally triaging.

You generally know when someone asks you to do something- am I more writing, or am I more editing? The editor is the best metaphor for your job.

It's never a metric, it's where the person is going or not. Metrics are used to make things work better, but don't necessarily make a business better.

The office environment that people live in and work in, dictates your culture and how people make decisions.

Usually when you hire more engineers, you actually don't get that much more done, you actually sometimes get less done.

Possibly the most important thing you do is actually edit the team.

It's easy to shortcut when you get busy explaining the why's of the world, but it's very important to try.

The construct of a dashboard, first of all should be drafted by the founder.

You need to simplify the value proposition in the company's metrics for success on a whiteboard.

Where there are low consequences and you have very low confidence in your own opinion, you should absolutely delegate.

The companies I have traditionally seen do best over the long term had lead investors for their seed rounds

The way you scale that is you create notes for every meeting and send it to the entire company.

You want to start with the objective of everything should feel exactly the same.

Most people would agree that the details matter when it faces the user. But where the real debate is on things that don't face the user.

What you actually want to do with every single employee, every single day is expand the scope of their responsibilities until it breaks.

The next thing you do is allocate resources.

As the company scales, everybody is not going to get invited to every single meeting, but they're gonna want to go to every meeting.

Your goal over time is to use less red ink every day.

Transparency people talk a lot about, it's a goal everybody ascribes to but when push comes to shove, very few people actually adhere to it.

The office environment that people work in everyday dictates the culture that you are going to be in.

I think you must have your own office. I don't believe ever in shared office spaces.

Some people can't learn to play the guitar by reading a book. You have to actually try to manage a bit and you won't do well at first.

If the Martians took over eBay it would take 6 months for the world to notice.

Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money

I don't regret nuthin.

I occasionally borrow pot from my kids. They do a little weed occasionally. 'Here, Dad' — or more likely, 'Dad, have you got any?'

It's called the mysterious rhythm of life, ... I can't quite account for it. It's probably an addiction, quite honestly. I need that shot of stage every two or three years.

You don't start to play your guitar thinking you're going to be running an organisation that will maybe generate millions.

Well, I'm not putting death on the agenda. I don't want to see my old friend Lucifer just yet. He's the guy I'm gonna see, isn't it? I'm not going to the Other Place, let's face it.

It's really good to be here and as I always say, it's really good to be anywhere!

Treat each guitar track-and each song-completely different. For example, if I'm using a certain amp and guitar on one track, I'll deliberately use something else for the next tune or overdub.

It's good to be anywhere.

I don't think rock n' roll songwriters should worry about art. I don't think it comes into it...as far as I'm concerned, Art is just short for Arthur.

Everything they’d been brought up not to do, they could do at a rock-and-roll show.

There's a certain moment when you realize that you've actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you. . .When it works, baby, you've got wings.

When you're supported by millions all over the world, you can either go nuts, or try to feed off the goodwill.

The electric guitar meant that you could have a band with a drummer and a couple of guitars. And that put a lot of horn players out of work.