I spent those months in the building more than in any boardroom — on the floor, in the labs, at the long tables in the cafeteria, listening.

The engineers had been treated, under Damian, as a cost to be managed.

I had bought the company precisely because they were the opposite of a cost; they were the entire reason it was worth saving.

It took time for them to believe that the new owner actually meant it.

Belief, once it has been broken in people, comes back shyly, and you earn it back the only way there is, which is by being, day after unremarkable day, exactly what you said you would be.

That is the entire secret, and it is not a secret at all, only a discipline most people in power find too boring to practice.