“People ask me why I got into high tech,” Bill Campbell jokes with visitors to his Palo Alto office. “I tell them you should have seen my coaching record.” Indeed, in six seasons, during the 1970s, as head football coach at his alma mater, New York’s Columbia University, Campbell never turned in a winning season.

It’s been a different story in Silicon Valley, where Campbell, a wiry, energetic former college linebacker, moved more than two decades ago to join Apple Computer and market the brand-new Macintosh. Since then Campbell, 66, has served as CEO of three high-tech companies, including software maker Intuit, whose board he now chairs. He also sits on Apple’s board and serves as a low-profile, high-level counselor to many emerging high-tech companies. To executives at these and other valley icons, large and small, who fondly refer to Campbell as “coach,” it’s precisely his straightforward delivery and seasoned counsel that make him one of the best-known background players in the heartland of US technology and innovation. Campbell “is the single best mentor and coach of CEOs, teams, and talent I’ve ever met,” says venture capitalist John Doerr,¹ who encouraged Campbell to step into a mentoring role five...