After putting economics aside, I found that there were two primary reasons why people quit: They hated their manager; generally the employees were appalled by the lack of guidance, career development, and feedback they were receiving. They weren’t learning anything: The company wasn’t investing resources in helping employees develop new skills.
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.
- Joel Olsteen
In the Soviet Union I was the head of all oil production. And you know in the Soviet Union, you didn’t get that job unless you were really worth it.
- Vagit Alekperov
I’m less interested in how people are following each other and more interested in how they are following topics and tweets themselves. People are following more key words and concepts and more ideas and acting on those rather than individuals or organizations.
- Jack Dorsey
I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.
- Jeff Bezos
I am a man of simple tastes easily satisfied with the best.
- Winston Churchill
I wish I could do a lot of things different. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I’d go, ‘Okay, I’ll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.’ Really. But I’ve made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?
- Steve Martin
I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.
- Elon Musk
But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.
- Winston Churchill
Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education. Permission marketing is curriculum marketing.
- Seth Godin
The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.
- Seth Godin
Success-minded people have no trouble at all following proven instructions. We all would be happy to follow a map if the map came with a guarantee. There is no guarantee, though. There are no maps. They’ve all been taken, and their value is not what it used to be, because your competitors have maps, too. The opportunity lies in pursuing your curiosity instead. Curiosity is not allergic to failure. Curiosity drives us to the haunted house because the thrills lie in what we don’t expect, not in what’s safe. Curiosity can start us down the path to shipping, to bringing things to the world, to examining them, refining them, and repeating the process again (and again).
- Seth Godin
CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.
- Peter Thiel
Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.
- Elon Musk
Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking tartar sauce with you.
- Zig Ziglar
I’ve been very lucky. I come from a very close family.
- Richard Branson
What you tolerate you can not change.
- Joel Olsteen
The Group is rapidly increasing its activities in Mainland China, where it now has projects ranging from landmark commercial developments in the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai to massive residential schemes in the second-tier cities.
- Lee Shau Kee
Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed, A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden of weeds.
- John D. Rockefeller
Luck plays a role in business but whether you succeed or fail depends on many other factors. I haven’t really had a failure.
- Lui Che Woo
If geek means you’re willing to study things, and if you think science and engineering matter, I plead guilty. If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.
- Bill Gates
All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory’ was the motto of the King’s Guard in ancient Greece.
- Dale Carnegie
I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.
- Elon Musk
If you ask an economist what’s driven economic growth, it’s been major advances in things that mattered – the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.
- Larry Page
Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories… We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.
- Timothy Ferriss
People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
- Zig Ziglar
The battle is all over except the ‘shouting’ when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.
- Napoleon Hill
I had a feeling once about Mathematics – that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me – the Byss and Abyss. I saw – as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show – a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
- Winston Churchill
By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.
- Harvey Mackay
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
- Thomas Edison
I feel that people I trusted – I don’t know who, on what level – have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay. And I think, frankly, that I’m the best person to see it through.
- Rupert Murdoch
So now, having learned from machines, organizations are applying the same logic to people. Letting people in the organization use their best judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.
- Seth Godin
To Admiral Cunningham it was against all tradition to abandon the Army in such a crisis. He declared, “It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition.
- Winston Churchill
You guarantee a good meal by picking the recipes well, not by following recipes well.
- Timothy Ferriss
You’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.
- Jack Welch
Follow the GOLDEN RULE. Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.
- David Robinson
Entrepreneurs, by definition, shift resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield.
- Peter Drucker
There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The smartest business decision you can make is to hire qualified people. Bringing the right people on board saves you thousands, and your business will run smoothly and efficiently.
- Brian Tracy
Only 17 percent of us or our spouses ever attended a private elementary or private highschool. But 55 percent of our children are currently attending or have attended private schools.
- Thomas J Stanley
We had been kicked out of one bank… The second, it was touch and go…
- Phil Knight
Get through your fears and the world will open up. Give in to your fears and your world will get smaller every year.
- Robert Kiyosaki
If we are growing we are always going to be outside our comfort zone.
- John C. Maxwell
Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.
- John C. Maxwell
I think my father is nearly perfect. I think he’s quite handsome, except a bit fat.
- Gina Rinehart
The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me….
- Thomas Edison
The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.
- Andrew Carnegie
The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.
- Richard Branson
I think what’s happening for me, it’s fun to see other things besides Facebook and Twitter take hold. The maturity of Tumblr as a real player is exciting. I think Pinterest has proved to be a major player. It’s fun to see Instagram become a major player. It’s fun to watch things like SnapChat, and Vine, try to vie to be the next thing.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
- Aristotle
These endless legal challenges that define elections in New York are a joke in this country, and they are the reason why it is so expensive, or one of the reasons, it’s so expensive to run here and why so many people decide not to run.
- Michael Bloomberg
I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let’s bring joy back to the experience.
- Sara Blakely
There’s a sucker born every minute.
- P.T. Barnum
Successful storytelling builds brand equity, and businesses with high brand equity don’t need to draw as much attention to themselves and their achievements as those that are still establishing their value to the customer.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.
- Jeff Bezos
We have the necessary foundations that will enable us to weather the current storm and enter into a new era of growth.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Nature is truly wonderful. Only man is truly foul.
- Thomas Edison
[On the Nike logo] I don’t love it, but it will grow on me.
- Phil Knight
My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever more inventions…. The dove is my emblem…. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it…. I am proud of the fact that I have never invented weapons to kill….
- Thomas Edison
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
- Peter Drucker
When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.
- Winston Churchill
Really, truly, try to figure out what your palate is all about. If you’ve determined that you don’t like dirty old stinky wine – old-world flavors – you probably like new-world fruit bombs. Stick to Shirazes and California Cabernets or Zinfandels.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Dream more than others think practical.
- Howard Schultz
Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.
- Phil Knight
When plans appear into your mind, they will probably flash into your mind through the sixth sense, in the form of an inspiration. This inspiration may be considered a direct telegram, or message from infinite intelligence. Treat it with respect, and act upon it as soon as you receive it. Failure to do this is fatal to your succeess.
- Napoleon Hill
I love doing a lot of things I’m told I can’t do. I think that’s what drives me and keeps me awake every day.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
I’m anti-tax, but I’m pro-carbon tax.
- Elon Musk
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
- Brian Tracy
Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship.
- Ben Horowitz
Disruptive technology should be framed as a marketing challenge, not a technological one.
- Clayton M. Christensen
If this market transition truly evolves the way that I think it’s most likely to, the worst decision you could make is not to move.
- John Chambers
Law of Clarity – If you can’t explain what you sell to a ten-year old child then you don’t know what you sell.
- Jerry Vass
Within the Nasdaq as an example, I do believe that out of the top 100 companies … half of them will not be around five years from now.
- John Chambers
In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
- Winston Churchill
AP pleaded guilty to criminal theft of our software. Let me be clear. I’m not accusing SAP of anything. What did SAP do? Did you engage in criminal behavior and steal lots of Oracle software? Yes. That’s SAP. Who was CEO when you were doing all this criminal stuff? Leo.
- Larry Ellison
MANAGING STRICTLY BY NUMBERS IS LIKE PAINTING BY NUMBERS Some things that you want to encourage will be quantifiable, and some will not. If you report on the quantitative goals and ignore the qualitative ones, you won’t get the qualitative goals, which may be the most important ones. Management purely by numbers is sort of like painting by numbers—it’s strictly for amateurs. At HP, the company wanted high earnings now and in the future. By focusing entirely on the numbers, HP got them now by sacrificing the future. Note that there were many numbers as well as more qualitative goals that would have helped: Was our competitive win rate increasing or declining? Was customer satisfaction rising or falling? What did our own engineers think of the products? By managing the organization as though it were a black box, some divisions at HP optimized the present at the expense of their downstream competitiveness. The company rewarded managers for achieving short-term objectives in a manner that was bad for the company. It would have been better to take into account the white box. The white box goes beyond the numbers and gets into how the organization produced the numbers. It penalizes managers who sacrifice the future for the short term and rewards those who invest in the future even if that investment cannot be easily measured. CLOSING THOUGHT It is easy to see that there are many ways for leaders to be misinterpreted. To get things right, you must recognize that anything you measure automatically creates a set of employee behaviors. Once you determine the result you want, you need to test the description of the result against the employee behaviors that the description will likely create. Otherwise, the side-effect behaviors may be worse than the situation you were trying to fix.
- Ben Horowitz
In the end, I hope there’s a little note somewhere that says I designed a good computer.
- Steve Wozniak
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
- Henry Ford
Whenever you are speaking, both your passion for your business and your appearance will have a lasting impact on your audience.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Remember the proverb of Solomon: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
- P.T. Barnum
I give away something up to $500 million a year throughout the world promoting Open Society. My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It’s their work that I’m supporting. So it’s not me doing it.
- George Soros
In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it’s disruptive and it’s a problem.
- Ray Dalio
I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.
- Elon Musk
At the time of any given decision, the CEO will generally have less than 10 percent of the information typically present in the post hoc Harvard Business School case study.
- Ben Horowitz
Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.
- Dale Carnegie
I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.
- Zig Ziglar
I am concerned about any attrition in customer traffic at Starbucks, but I don’t want to use the economy, commodity prices or consumer confidence as an excuse. We must maintain a value proposition to our customers as well as differentiate the Starbucks Experience. That is the key.
- Howard Schultz
Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.
- Peter Thiel
I like a man who grins when he fights.
- Winston Churchill
My financial service business is the absolute best thing I have done to empower the poor. I run many charities and fight many political causes, but my financial service company is the greatest gift I’ve given.
- Russell Simmons
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
- Winston Churchill
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
Entrepreneurship is “risky” mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.
- Peter Drucker
Life is not fair – get used to it!
- Bill Gates
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
- Winston Churchill
No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect a leader who does not grade high on all of the factors of a Pleasing Personality.
- Napoleon Hill
Let us accept the natural order in which we move. Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time. Let us treasure our joys but not bewail our sorrows. The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making – once.
- Winston Churchill
If you can get better at your job, you should be an active member of LinkedIn, because LinkedIn should be connecting you to the information, insights and people to be more effective.
- Reid Hoffman
Every twenty-four hours God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.
- Joel Olsteen
