Startups that grow into transformative companies do two things. Number one: They nail the basics. Number two: They cultivate the right habits—their core operating principles. The first is mandatory. If you don't get the basics right, in all probability, your company won't succeed.

Capital can be a competitive weapon. You have to be good at fundraising if you're going to be doing a startup in a competitive space. If you're going to try to build something at scale and speed, you can't have your competitors out-raise you. It's going to make it very hard for you. If you're not great at fundraising today, you need to get excellent at it really quickly.

There are 13 ways of doing anything; 11 of them will work. Just pick one and do it. The best founders avoid over-analyzing. As a startup, you don't have time, and the result will most likely be marginal. Pick a way and do it. Be consistently decisive.

As a CEO, you are storyteller in chief. Telling your story in compelling ways and adapting that story to the audience and the moment is your most important job.

As a benchmark, you should be conducting 20-100 experiments per month as a startup.

When the name of your company and your brand name become shorthand for the entire market category, like Google did with search and now Uber is for ride-sharing, it becomes an incredibly powerful defensive weapon and a growth mechanism.

If you look at chess, I can beat a Grandmaster in chess if I can make two moves to every one move they make—even though they're much better than me. Speed is the ultimate competitive weapon, and Uber has shown that again and again.

Single player products increase their value to the user at a linear rate; multiplayer networked products can become more valuable at an exponential rate.

The most high-impact companies think about language first and features second. You can build a whole company on the power of a phrase.