On public speaking...

"One of the things I learned about in the formative stages of my career was public speaking. I learned by watching lots of presentations, and one thing I figured out early on is that most CFO-level speakers — particularly CEOs, particularly male CEOs—really suck as speakers. They're boring; they're long; they wander around. I saw speech after speech, and I discovered that if there's anything worse than a speaker who sucks, it's a speaker who sucks and you have no idea how much longer he or she is going to suck. That's a horrible feeling.

To prevent you from getting that feeling, I've developed a Top 10 format. All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I'm going to suck.

- Guy Kawasaki