How I failed - Tim O'Reilly - O'Reilly

Failure: Not making sure that my team was hearing what I was actually saying.

You don't know what book you wrote until you know what people are reading

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"You can leave anything out as long as you know what it is" - Hemingway

Good fiction has way more depth than what you are given. The author knows more than they consciously reveal.

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O'Reilly learned late of the sponsorship model for events

O'Reilly has strength in doing good ideas just to do them, but sometimes goes wrong because they don't know how it fits into their vision

Failure: listening to "that's how it's done"

Insight and fresh thinking should be applied both inside and outside. Just as much as you try to understand the market and customers you need to understand your employees.

Failure: lack of financial and operational discipline

Cash flow positive = putting money in the bank. O'Reilly was profitable but not cash flow positive for too long

"Happiness is positive cash flow" - Fred Adler

Amazon says, we don't spend money on anything that doesn't help customers

Treat the financial team as co-founders

Hold teams accountable to their numbers (financial or otherwise)

Tim thinks he failed when he let people off the hook on their numbers

Run lean, reinvent tirelessly

Run lean and when you pivot reassess your staff

Work hard on your internal culture

Drive by Dan Pink - autonomy, mastery, & purpose = what employees need to be motivated

Failure: tolerating mediocrity

Sometimes you need to cancel a project at the last minute because it isn't good enough. It might be disruptive but you can try to have processes that help mitigate it

"Keep stretching the bow, you repent of the pull" Lao Tzu
If you keep pulling back on the bowstring your arm will start to shake and you will progressively ruin your aim

Stand up for greatness

Failure: hiring supplements not complements - hire people that are not like you and bring more and bring diversity to the table

As a leader you should not be the best person in the company at any one thing. Applies to both strengths and weaknesses

Failure: I'll take care of that - compensate for the employees weakness is not good

A leader can be a handyman that just deals with what's lying around rather than an engineer.

The organization you build is more important then the product you build in the long term.

O'Reilly has the vision of being an education company. That's why it can hold events like Cultivate and not stray from the vision. They aren't just a book company.