Even so, the enemy of a successful startup was complacency. To combat this, the CEO liked to instill fear. He was not a formidable physical presence—he had gelled, spiky hair; he was slight; he often wore a green jacket indoors, presumably to fight the chill—but he could scare the hell out of us. He spoke in military terms. “We are at war,” he would say, standing in front of us with his arms crossed and his jaw tensed. Across the world, Syria and Iraq and Israel raged. We were at war with competitors, for market share. We would look down at our bottles of kombucha or orange juice and nod along gravely.