Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

Bill Campbell never ran a company that made headlines of its own, but his fingerprints are on some of the most consequential businesses in modern history. As a coach and mentor to the founders and executives of Google, Apple, and Intuit, Campbell built close relationships with the defining figures of Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and helped guide their companies through the decisions that would shape the digital age. By the time of his death in 2016, the combined market value of the enterprises he had touched exceeded a trillion dollars. In Trillion Dollar Coach, three former Google leaders who knew Campbell well, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle, set out to preserve and pass on his wisdom. Drawing on interviews with more than eighty people who worked with or were mentored by him, they distill the principles behind his extraordinary effectiveness: how he built trust rapidly and unconditionally, how he created cultures of courage and candor, and how he identified and defused the tensions that quietly undermine fast-moving organizations. The result is not a conventional business book. It is a portrait of a man who believed the best thing a leader could do was build other leaders, and who proved that conviction right at a scale that may never be equaled.