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Preface From an early age, I worked on the family ranch, doing whatever needed to be done. Sunrise to sunset, we fixed fences and bucked hay. The ranch sprawled across thousands of acres, and money was tight. We wasted very little, often baking our own bread and cooking meals with rattlesnake and rabbit as our source of protein. We raised beef cattle but rarely ate it. The more of our own beef we ate, after all, the less the family had left to sell. Civilization was a long drive away, so even as kids, we learned the impor- tance of being prepared and being efficient. If you didn’t think ahead before you began your work, you could be an hour’s ride from the house. At best, you had to trek back to get whatever tool you forgot. At worst, you would be stranded in the field, hoping someone knew where you were that day. That remoteness also meant mandatory independence. The solution to a problem wasn’t a quick walk down the street, sitting on the shelf of a store and it certainly wasn’t a how to fix your problem YouTube video with 10 mil- lion views. If you encountered an obstacle, you had to figure it out there on the ranch on your own in real time. That often meant teamwork with the rest of the family, as well as planning and improvisation. At the same time, it meant responsibility. If you ignored a small problem today, it could become a big problem tomorrow. Through some mix of nature and nurture, I gravitated toward business from an early age, making businesses on the side when I wasn’t busy on the ranch. I started running businesses when I was in elementary school, long before I began my adventures in Silicon Valley as a software developer turned entre- preneur. I went door-to-door, selling things like Cheerful House greeting cards or magazines. I had my own checking accounts, and I filled the family garage with boxes of products that needed to be delivered to customers. Driven by the mentality that ranch life demanded, if I saw an opportunity, I was compelled to explore it. I had patience, grit, and the tenacity to ride