CUE BALL: NEW YORK TIMES PROFILE by Adam Bryant

Tony Tjan: “I think early on in many people’s careers, you have a tendency to want to show off your good side, and vulnerability and degrees of humility are not viewed as desirable traits.

The seminal inflection point for me was being at the highest of highs and then going right through the nuclear winter of the dot-com bust. . . On the day we were to go public, April 14, 2000. We then had layoffs and a significant restructuring. It’s hard to even describe that period, but we eventually came out of it.

The lesson from that was that self-awareness trumps all. You need to know what your superhero strength is, but you really learn at tougher times what your and others’ weaknesses are. The biggest shift for me was that I realized how important intrinsic rewards are — like the value of a meaningful role — over extrinsic rewards.

When you’re a mentor, you’ve got to realize that people are often sharing their dreams, and I think it’s human nature to be a critic.

…When someone gives you an idea, try to wait just 24 seconds before criticizing it. If you can do that, wait 24 minutes. Then if you become a Zen master of optimism, you could wait a day, and spend that time thinking about why something actually might work.”