"Firefighting"

Q&A: Ex-Amazon 'Master of Disaster' Jesse Robbins on the Power of 'Relentless Optimism' in Startups

GeekWire ran a long Q&A while I was running Opscode and pulled out the operating principle I kept using inside Amazon: when people say no, find a way to make them say yes.

“When you're trying to change the way big organizations work, a lot of people say no a lot. Rather than try to fight them, you've got to find a way to make them say yes. Being a force for awesome in the world is finding ways to say yes.”

DevOps Cafe Episode 19: Jesse Robbins

Damon Edwards and John Willis hosted me on DevOps Cafe to walk through the path from teenage ISP work to firefighting to Amazon to Chef and Velocity.