Tough Things First: Leadership Lessons from Silicon Valley's Longest Serving CEO

CHAPTER 2

The Eyes

Among all bodily senses, eyesight is the most essential. I lost mine shortly before Micrel issued its initial public offering.

I was in London on a leg of our IPO road show, in which Micrel senior management was engaging investors in the last months before we went public. We were in a restaurant when it started. The menu appeared to have little pieces missing, though everything around it looked right. At first I thought the menu had a printing error. I asked the guy seated next to me how his menu looked, and he said it was fine, and so I took his menu, and it looked just as poorly printed as mine.

I muddled through ordering dinner and wrote off the experience as a transient affair. But the next morning when I faced the mirror ...