In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.

Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That's the fundamental thing.

Leadership is hard to train on.

I feel like I'm getting the best parts of my career, in my 50s.

Our work on light bulbs wasn't an arbitrary mandate. We didn't just pick a standard out of the air, or look for a catchy sounding standard like 25 by 2025 not based in science or feasibility. Instead, we worked with both industry and environmental groups to come up with a standard that made sense and was doable.

I know that in spite of my varied career accomplishments, the one that will always excite and intrigue is the KKK investigation. It has defined me in ways unimaginable and has always fascinated those who hear its tale.

My work begins at around 3 P.M. I wake up at around 2 P.M., watch my serial cassettes, jog for 30 minutes, get my make-up done, and plunge into meetings lined up with my directors. By evening, I finish all meetings and go to my office, where I handle any problems that may have arisen there.