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Like any small business owner, I experienced the pressures of building a company from the ground up - developing a business plan, balancing the books, meeting payroll and building a customer base.

As I spent tons of time with customers, not just in the United States, but in emerging markets, in Europe, in Latin America, top of mind for everybody is how do they drive growth for their business going forward.

As a young analyst just out of Stanford business school in the 1960s, I got to really understand what growth was about. Back then, you had to ask a customer to pay some money. That was the most important thing in getting a company off the ground.

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

You grow up a lot in terms of your understanding of the industry and how to deal with the corporate things.

When you are in a growth company, you have to really open people's eyes to the bigger possibilities so they think differently. Once they understand how to define success and what their role is in success, they make better decisions, and you can push decision-making down.

I start with people's growth, my own growth included. I don't start with the company's strategy or products. I start with people's growth because I believe that if the people who are running and participating in a company grow, then the company's growth will in many respects take care of itself.

People invest in businesses that they believe have the leadership, mission and team to grow and operate profitably.

In general, great companies prefer to grow 'organically,' as Wall Street likes to say. That is, from the inside out, by finding new markets or by taking market share from their competitors.

Growing is an important part of the business, but more important than that is to get better.