Leadership Lessons from Bill Campbell, the Trillion Dollar Coach

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell was an absolutely gripping read about a legendary coach and business executive, whose mentoring of the likes of Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos, amongst other tech luminaries, played a major role in the success of their companies.

While Bill was a private person — he passed away in 2016 — who instead preferred to shine the spotlight on the entrepreneurs and executives he worked with, three of his mentees, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle, decided that his invaluable teachings needed to be shared far and wide, in order to have the biggest impact that they possibly could; so they captured his wisdom in this easily digestible 191-page book (a welcome reprieve after having previously ground through a series of 400–600 page books).

Somewhat surprisingly, Bill took no cash, no stock…and no shit, and until I picked this book up, I didn’t realize people like Bill existed.

The book was packed with value bombs and what follows are some excerpts from the book, and my own notes, which I thought I’d publish to, again, amplify the reach of Bill’s teachings.

Since writing this post, I had the pleasure of interviewing authors Jonathan Rosenberg (advisor to…