If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
Two metrics set the limits for effective distribution. The total net profit that you earn on average over the course of your relationship with a customer (Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV) must exceed the amount you spend on average to acquire a new customer (Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC). In general, the higher the price of your product, the more you have to spend to make a sale—and the more it makes sense to spend it.
- Peter Thiel
Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply
- Sergey Brin
You may live or work around a bunch of weeds, but don’t let that stop you from blooming. Realize that your environment does not prevent you from being happy. Some people spend all their time trying to pull up all the weeds. Meanwhile, they miss much of their lives. Don’t worry about things you can’t change. You can’t change the traffic in the morning. You can’t fix everybody at work. You can’t make all your family members serve God. But you shouldn’t let that keep you from being happy. Bloom anyway and focus on the things that you can change. You can change your own attitude. You can choose to be happy right where you are.
- Joel Olsteen
Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started ‘Wine Library TV.’ They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
For the first time in a very long time, I believe the external factors are slowly starting to be more positive, … This is still a minority view, held by a minority of our customers, but we’ve seen early indications that the recovery could be gaining momentum.
- John Chambers
We must hang together or we will hang together.
- Benjamin Franklin
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
- Peter Drucker
I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.
- Bill Gates
Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give him one of yours.
- Zig Ziglar
I get great satisfaction from both business and philanthropy.
- Donald Bren
I wasn’t prepared for this big room with clattering typewriters and teletype printers. You could hardly hear yourself think.
- Ray Kroc
Education comes from within, you get it by struggle and effort and thought.
- Napoleon Hill
The Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is.
- Michael Gerber
The ‘Billionaire’ song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It’s funny.
- Bill Gates
A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
- Winston Churchill
I think it’d be crazy not to have the plan encompass the entire reservoir. If we have (the smaller map), we’ve got a bunch of other folks telling us what they want to see happen in our community.
- Jack Taylor
The Starbucks customer and the Teavana customer are two very different customers, two different need states that are highly complimentary.
- Howard Schultz
The most valuable companies in the future won’t ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead, they’ll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?
- Peter Thiel
Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change you believe in.
- Seth Godin
I do know this… I seem to reach a lot of previously unchurched people. So many people have told me they never went to church until they heard our message of hope that God is a good God who desires to bless those who are faithful and obedient to Him through Jesus Christ.
- Joel Olsteen
I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn’t cool.
- Bill Gates
People of excellence go the extra mile to do what’s right.
- Joel Olsteen
There’s always a wine bully. The one person who did read the ‘Wine Spectator,’ who tells you what to drink and why the ’97 is better than the ’98. I want to punch the wine bully in the face. I want to make sure this generation of wine drinkers isn’t elitist and snotty. I want it to be about family and bringing people together.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Ethics to me is very important.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
The leader of the market today may not necessarily be the leader tomorrow.
- Ma Huateng
Bolsheviks create their own difficulties which they successfully overcame later.
- Winston Churchill
The profile of homebuyers in Hong Kong is becoming more diverse and a wider range of marketing channels is thus needed to promote the Group’s Hong Kong property projects.
- Lee Shau Kee
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
- Winston Churchill
There’s a sucker born every minute.
- P.T. Barnum
The third way is less common and certainly less of a layup—a culture of integrity, meaning a culture of honesty, transparency, fairness, and strict adherence to rules and regulations. In such cultures, there can be no head fakes or winks. People who break the rules do not leave the company for “personal reasons” or to “spend more time with their families.” They are hanged—publicly—and the reasons are made painfully clear to everyone.
- Jack Welch
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
- Peter Drucker
We’ve seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realizing the power of this medium to organize people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we’re seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world.
- Sergey Brin
We have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good – always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, ‘Don’t be evil’ seems the easiest way to summarize it.
- Sergey Brin
Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.
- Steve Jobs
We’re responsible for the creation of the PC industry. The whole idea of compatible machines and lots of software.. that’s something we brought to computing. And so it’s a responsibility for us to make sure that things like security don’t get in the way of that dream.
- Bill Gates
He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.
- P.T. Barnum
One day, I’d like to write a book about the worst ads ever run, but my fear is that it would be too long.
- Seth Godin
God accepts you. God approves you. And He has something better in store.
- Joel Olsteen
God doesn’t look at how much we do, but with how much love we do it.
- Mother Teresa
Play long enough and you might get lucky. In the technology game, tomorrow looks nothing like today. If you survive long enough to see tomorrow, it may bring you the answer that seems so impossible today.
- Ben Horowitz
When growth is slower-than-expected, stocks go down. When inflation is higher-than-expected, bonds go down. When inflation is lower-than-expected, bonds go up.
- Ray Dalio
Sometimes, “never let them see you sweat,” is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present.Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.
- Seth Godin
Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticable from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.
- Napoleon Hill
So here we are.
- Seth Godin
I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.
- Seth Godin
It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain of his plot.
- Paul Theroux
The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.
- Bill Gates
Above all, you want to create something you’re proud of. This has always been my philosophy of business. I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off not doing it.
- Richard Branson
I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.
- Warren Buffett
I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!
- Michael Bloomberg
It’s not about how to get started, it’s about how to get noticed.
- Steve Case
Remember you’re not entitled to anything. You have to earn your success every day, and you will make mistakes like everyone else.
- Harvey Mackay
In early 2009, the property market was still being driven by pessimistic sentiment and a wait-and-see attitude, leading to a further drop in the transaction volume.
- Lee Shau Kee
One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
- Bruce Lee
All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to Actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Marketing knits the whole organization together.
- Phil Knight
On this basis, we intend to increase the dividend for the third time in a row. We are proposing a distribution of €3.25 per share, corresponding to a dividend payout ratio of 27.4 percent, which is again up slightly on the previous year’s level.
- Elmar Degenhart
Getting every employee’s mind into the game is a huge part of what the CEO job is all about. Taking everyone’s best ideas and transferring them to others it the secret. Nothing is more important.
- Jack Welch
If you’re going to be thinking, you may as well think big.
- Donald Trump
The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.
- Marc Benioff
We’ll be watching as the storm approaches. If we see a service area is about to be hit by high winds, we will literally have crews loaded and sitting in trucks, ready to go.
- Ed Clark
People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Stepping back from almost any situation with an underperformer, it’s always easy to see the solution. They need to move on—sooner rather than later. Up close, however, organizations tend to draw out departures, as people fret about the employee’s emotional reaction to being let go. Oftentimes, managers feel guilty about putting a friend out of work, or remorseful they didn’t give candid enough feedback along the way, or both.
- Jack Welch
If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
- Oprah Winfrey
The U.S. has done a great job improving productivity. We’re making a lot more steel in Dearborn with fewer people. The unions have accepted much better work rules.
- Alexei Mordashov
Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.
- George Lucas
Whenever you are speaking, both your passion for your business and your appearance will have a lasting impact on your audience.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
- Oprah Winfrey
Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Safari, so goody.
- Winston Churchill
The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place. The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t know the answer. The Struggle is when your employees think you are lying and you think they may be right. The Struggle is when food loses its taste. The Struggle is when you don’t believe you should be CEO of your company. The Struggle is when you know that you are in over your head and you know that you cannot be replaced. The Struggle is when everybody thinks you are an idiot, but nobody will fire you. The Struggle is where self-doubt becomes self-hatred. The Struggle is when you are having a conversation with someone and you can’t hear a word that they are saying because all you can hear is the Struggle. The Struggle is when you want the pain to stop. The Struggle is unhappiness. The Struggle is when you go on vacation to feel better and you feel worse. The Struggle is when you are surrounded by people and you are all alone. The Struggle has no mercy. The Struggle is the land of broken promises and crushed dreams. The Struggle is a cold sweat. The Struggle is where your guts boil so much that you feel like you are going to spit blood. The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are weak. Always if you are weak. Most people are not strong enough. Every great entrepreneur from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg went through the Struggle and struggle they did, so you are not alone. But that does not mean that you will make it. You may not make it. That is why it is the Struggle. The Struggle is where greatness comes from.
- Ben Horowitz
A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.
- Arnold Glasow
You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.
- Elon Musk
In order for us to have a future that’s exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we’re a space-bearing civilization.
- Elon Musk
The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another, into the general democratic system lies heavy upon us today.
- Winston Churchill
Southwest consistently turns a profit because they have an employee ownership program that gives their employees a sense of ownership that is very real. When the company does well financially, the employees do well financially. When the company struggles, the employees struggle.
- Clay Clark
I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.
- Andrew Carnegie
I haven’t failed,I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Zig Ziglar
It is equally important that diversification is an ongoing process.
- Cheng Yu-tung
You can expect what you accept.
- Anonymous
Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Technological advance seemed to accelerate automatically, so the Boomers grew up with great expectations but few specific plans for how to fulfill them.
- Peter Thiel
Trump has been very influential in helping me expand by vision. Sometimes I talk to Donald two or three times a day, and he’s taught me many things. The best thing was a story he tells me about buying a building. When he built Trump Tower he also bought the rights to use the Tiffany name on the building. It was gonna be Tiffany Tower. He late father said, Yeah right. When you change your name to Tiffany, you call it Tiffany Tower. But for now, you call it Trump. Over a period of years whenever he was in trouble, his name and his promotion of himself as a brand are what saved him. I keep that lesson in mind. I remember how connecting Def Comedy Jam to Def Jam records helped both entities – associating HBO with an established hip-hop brand helped get the show on the air, while linking the label to a hot TV show helped the label survive a cold period.
- Russell Simmons
Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is–the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
- Winston Churchill
The most obvious market segment in email-based payments was the millions of emigrants still using Western Union to wire money to their families back home. Our product made that effortless, but the transactions were too infrequent.
- Peter Thiel
Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.
- Jack Ma
Vince McMahon is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, but WWE’s not striving for the kind of innovation it’s capable of.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s undervalued and underinvested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board.
- Evan Williams
The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.
- Jack Ma
My personal opinion is that I’m in the media too much. I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman. I would like to be without any extra visibility.
- Viktor Vekselberg
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
- Mark Twain
I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.
- Jack Ma
I was never much of a reader when I was a boy. Books bored me. I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I’d imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them.
- Ray Kroc
In energy, you have to plan and do research way in advance, sometimes decades in advance to get a new system that’s safer, doesn’t require us to go around the world to get all our oil.
- Bill Gates
You’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business—no matter how good the product.
- Peter Thiel
Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.
- Seth Godin
Every man should make his son or daughter learn some useful trade or profession, so that in these days of changing fortunes of being rich today and poor tomorrow they may have something tangible to fall back upon. This provision might save many persons from misery, who by some unexpected turn of fortune have lost all their means.
- P.T. Barnum
For any business to grow, individuals must be accountable for each of the systems, and a general overall director must be in charge of making sure all the systems operate at the highest capacity.
- Robert Kiyosaki
[In April 2013] Being anonymous is an important part of democracy. I think it’s a critical part of democracy.
- Jack Dorsey
