He never took credit for coaching Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or anyone else. If Campbell walked into a restaurant like Il Fornaio, where the digerati congregate, or the Old Pro, the bustling sports bar he co-owned in Palo Alto, even people who don’t generally look at you when they speak would smile broadly and give him a hug.

Trillion Dollar Coach

• Bill Campbell was Donna’s boss’s boss, and he dished out exactly the kind of tough love you’d expect from a football coach: he tore her proposal apart, pushed her to come up with something stronger, and then stood up for her.
• Not wanting to bother Bill himself, I started reaching out to his mentees. Soon I had a flurry of calls with Bill’s protégés, who described him as a father and compared him to Oprah.
• Trillion Dollar Coach reveals that to be a great manager, you have to be a great coach. After all, the higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful. By definition, that’s what coaches do.
• Sheryl Sandberg and I have often lamented that every bookstore has a self-help section, but there isn’t a help-others section. Trillion Dollar Coach belongs in the help-others section

• In fact, as we later found out, many of the people in the audience that day, an audience that numbered well over a thousand people, considered Bill to be their best friend.
• John Doerr invited him to come to Kleiner Perkins, the venerable venture capital firm, and become a coach for its portfolio companies.
• But he made sure the team was communicating, that tensions and disagreements were brought to the surface and discussed, so that when the big decisions were made, everyone was on board, whether they agreed or not.

Chapter 1: The Caddie and the CEO

• But to be most effective—and this was Bill’s model—the coach works with the entire team.

Chapter 2: Your Title Makes You a Manager. Your People Make You a Leader.

• He brought people together and created a strong team culture, but never lost sight of the fact that results mattered, and that they were a direct result of good management.
• “Bill, your title makes you a manager; your people make you a leader.”
• “Bill was one hundred percent substance.”