I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but I’ve learned the hard way that I don’t know my limits (or my company’s limits) until I’ve surpassed them. This can be a painful lesson, the raw material for your future wisdom.
I love passing on that wisdom to aspiring entrepreneurs. My metaphorical “skinned knee” could save a younger entrepreneur from the same mistake. It’s part of the reason I’ve written a half-dozen books and been a mentor to younger CEOs from organizations as diverse as Airbnb, Burning Man, and Zappos.
As an undergrad at Stanford (which has been dubbed the Farm since its founding), I sold twoquart calf-nursing bottles at football games that I had bought from a farm near Stanford and filled with booze. But
