Notable Quotables

The overall dynamic was net positive, unlike Napster’s negative-sum struggle with the U.S. recording industry. As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.

- Peter Thiel

STARTUP THINKING New technology tends to come from new ventures—startups. From the Founding Fathers in politics to the Royal Society in science to Fairchild Semiconductor’s “traitorous eight” in business, small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself. Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work (if this describes your company, you should quit now). At the other extreme, a lone genius might create a classic work of art or literature, but he could never create an entire industry. Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think. This book is about the questions you must ask and answer to succeed in the business of doing new things: what follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.

- Peter Thiel

Your thoughts about your circumstances have you down. On the other hand, you can be in one of the biggest battles of your life, and still be filled with joy and peace and victory – if you simply learn how to choose the right thought. It’s time to think about what you’re thinking about.

- Joel Olsteen

What I’m trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone.

- Elon Musk

Nobody wanted to gamble on that first Wal-Mart. I think Bud put in 3 percent, and Don Whitaker – whom I had hired to manage the store from TG&Y store out in Abilene, Texas, and I had to put up 95 percent of the dollars. Helen and I had to sign all the notes along with me, and her statement allowed us to borrow more than I could alone. We pledges houses and property, everything we had.. But in those days we were always borrowed to the hilt. We were about to go into the discount business for real now. And from the time those doggone Wal-Marts opened until almost today, it has been a little challenging.

- Sam Walton

We don’t live in a normal world, we live under a power law.

- Peter Thiel

I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.

- Celine Dion

Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses – it’s progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

- Bill Gates

There is no right or wrong way of giving. People in Los Angeles have made major contributions in different ways to the city: Eli Broad to art. David Geffen to hospitals. I’m not judgmental.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

DOS is ugly and interferes with users’ experience.

- Bill Gates

Here was a place where real things were going on. Here was a scene of vital action. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen.

- Winston Churchill

I have taken six companies public, and three of those are Fortune 1000 companies, but the key to my success has been my ability to sell other people on my dreams.

- Wayne Huizenga

A great business is seldom if ever built up, except on lines of the strictest integrity. A reputation for cuteness and sharp dealing is fatal in great affairs. Not the letter of the law, but the spirit, must be the rule. The standard of commercial morality is now very high. A mistake made by any one in favor of the firm is corrected as promptly as if the error were in favor of the other party. It is essential to permanent success that a house should obtain a reputation for being governed by what is fair rather that what is merely legal. A rule which is adpoted and adhered to has given greater returns than one would believe possible, namely; always give the other party the benefit of the doubt. This course does not apply to the speculative class (the stock market). An entirely different atmosphere pervades that world. Men are only gamblers there. Stock gambling and honorable business are incompatible. In recent years it must be admitted that the old fashioned banker, like Julius S. Morgan of London has become rare.

- Andrew Carnegie

The word ‘Spanx’ was funny. It made people laugh. No one ever forgot it.

- Sara Blakely

A narrow mind and a fat head invariably come on the same person.

- Zig Ziglar

You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while competitors scramble to get started. But moving first is a tactic, not a goal. What really matters is generating cash flows in the future, so being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you. It’s much better to be the last mover—that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits. The way to do that is to dominate a small niche and scale up from there, toward your ambitious long-term vision. In this one particular at least, business is like chess. Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.

- Peter Thiel

The bulk of the universities are about teaching kids.

- Bill Gates

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.

- Gail Devers

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: —There spread a cloud of dust along a plainAnd underneath the cloud, or in it, ragedA furious battle, and men yelled, and swordsShocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s bannerWavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.A craven hung along the battle’s edge,And thought, Had I a sword of keener steel —That blue blade that the king’s son bears, — but thisBlunt thing! — he snapt and flung it from his hand,And lowering crept away and left the field.Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shoutLifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,And saved a great cause that heroic day.

- Edward Rowland Sill

As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what’s going on, you’re very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you’re guaranteed to fail.

- Ben Horowitz

…The greatest shortage in our society is an instinct to produce. To create solutions and hustle them out the door. To touch the humanity inside and connect to the humans in the marketplace.

- Seth Godin

Trate siempre de que la otra persona se sienta importante.

- Dale Carnegie

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

- Steve Jobs

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

Well, it’s the last step of the civil rights movement: You know, wrap your hands around some money, right?

- Russell Simmons

I have to be ever vigilant to remain open to other people’s points of view. Just because I’m enthusiastic doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right. I have to always keep the doors open for honest communication or I could enthusiastically lead everyone right over the cliff.

- David Novak

Dr. Carl Jung said: During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among all my patients in the second half of hie, that is to say, over thirty-five, there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

- Dale Carnegie

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

- Thomas Edison

We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats – and then they figured out where to drive it.

- James C. Collins

I failed the LSAT. Basically, if I had not failed, I’d have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating.

- Sara Blakely

When you network, your aim is to meet people who are going places in their lives. You want to meet people who are ahead of you in their careers and in their organizations. You want to meet people you can look up to with pride. You want to meet people who can be friends, guides and mentors.

- Brian Tracy

The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.

- Andrew Carnegie

Success is one thing — but impact is another.

- Ray Lewis

Steve Jobs’ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

- Bill Gates

My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

- Jeff Bezos

[In April 2013] Being anonymous is an important part of democracy. I think it’s a critical part of democracy.

- Jack Dorsey

Lots of people will give you advice… and depending upon how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid.

- Abigail Johnson

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.

- Jeff Bezos

In any new business, someone has to have a vision. You are as good as the people around you. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Identify your core community and go from there. Nothing happens the way it’s supposed to. In my experience it often takes as long as five years to make a business work. Partners can fail you. Staff may not execute properly. You could be too far ahead of the market. SO you have to be willing to hand in there and make it happen. From the founding of Phat Farm in 1992 until 1997, I lost money. By my account, I experienced $10 million in losses. But today Phat Farm is visible, it is imitated and it generates hundreds of millions of dollars. It took time, but good ideas often do need time to take off. Being an entrepreneur requires instinct, fortitude and the ability to accept that the world does not run on your schedule. Sometimes you just have to believe.

- Russell Simmons

The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That’s approaching evil.

- Jeff Bezos

Now when I consider investing in a startup, I study the founding teams. Technical abilities and complementary skill sets matter, but how well the founders know each other and how well they work together matter just as much. Founders should share a prehistory before they start a company together—otherwise they’re just rolling dice.

- Peter Thiel

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

The question is not, ‘Do you have a problem?’ The question is, ‘Does the problem have you? ‘

- Joel Olsteen

I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.

- Jack Ma

If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the where withal to do what it takes to make your product work.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.

- Ben Horowitz

Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of all the humbugs.

- P.T. Barnum

This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.

- Peter Thiel

You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war. – To Neville Chamberlain

- Winston Churchill

It says in Romans 5:17, We are to reign in life as kings.” When God looks at us He doesn’t see us defeated, barely getting by, or just taking the leftover positions. Not at all. God sees you as a king. He sees you as a queen. You have His royal blood flowing through your veins. You and I are supposed to reign in life. Do you know what that word reign means? It means, time in power.” God said we’re to reign how long? In life. That means as long as you’re alive that is your time in power. You don’t have a two-year term like a mayor, a four-year term like a president. Your term is to reign every single day, to be victorious, to rise to new levels, to accomplish great things.

- Joel Olsteen

Assetts put money in your pocket. Liabilities take money out of your pocket.

- Robert Kiyosaki

After all God doesn’t want you to be an imitation of someone else. You should be the original you were created to be. There is an anointing on your life, an empowerment. Not to be somebody else, but to be you. If you let people squeeze you into their molds and you bow down to their pressure to try to please your critics, it not only takes away your uniqueness, but it also lessens the favor on your life.

- Joel Olsteen

You don’t build a business –you build people– and then people build the business.

- Zig Ziglar

We are more fascinated today by statistical predictions of what the country will be thinking in a few weeks’ time than by visionary predictions of what the country will look like 10 or 20 years from now.

- Peter Thiel

My father left me with a clear sense that the media was something different.

- Rupert Murdoch

The service leaders hire one out of 50 applicants, sometimes one out of 100, but they’re very, very careful. You can’t afford not to be extremely choosy when you hire.

- Harvey Mackay

I don’t make deals for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it.

- Donald Trump

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

People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.

- Soren Kierkegaard

Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

- Winston Churchill

I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have.

- Howard Schultz

It’s important that the company be a family, that people feel that they’re part of the company, and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat people that way, you get better productivity.

- Larry Page

We base our investment strategies on quality, trust, synergy and initiative.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.

- Herb Kelleher

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.

- Zig Ziglar

Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.

- James C. Collins

Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it’s based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.

- Howard Schultz

No question about it, alot of my attitude towards money stems from growing up during a pretty hardscrabble time in our country’s history: the Great Depression.

- Sam Walton

I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander.

- Howard Schultz

Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.

- Napoleon Hill

The best way to conduct research on a larger scale is to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing… The sooner the better – start talking to other people about what you’re doing. Because that’s what will stimulate things the fastest.

- James Simons

The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.

- Seth Godin

No newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, or nonmusic radio. Music is permitted at all times. No news websites whatsoever (cnn.com, drudgereport.com, msn.com,10 etc.). No television at all, except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening. No reading books, except for this book and one hour of fiction11 pleasure reading prior to bed. No web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a work task for that day. Necessary means necessary, not nice to have.

- Timothy Ferriss

Hay dos errores que podemos cometer en el camino hacia la verdad. No recorrer todo el camino, y no empezar.

- Siddhartha Gautama

I ask every participant to think about who their personal business mentors have been and why. I tell them my own business hero was Andy Pearson and I give them a few Andy stories to illustrate why. Then we break into groups of about twenty to go around in a circle and have each person talk about the person who has mean the most to him…We reconvene in the larger group and discuss some of the traits that were exhibited by the mentors; integrity, passion, inspiration, a positive outlook, and so on. A lot of people said it was someone who, helped me realize what I could achieve or really cared about me as a person. Then I try to get them to go a little deeper. I say, Now suppose that you were a fly on the wall, looking down on this room ten years from now. What would you like people to be saying about you? How would you feel if someone were saying that you were the person who had the greatest impact on his or her professional life?

- David Novak

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t.

- Zig Ziglar

The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.

- Seth Godin

We’re all obsessed with ideas because ideas, not products, are the engine of our new economy.

- Seth Godin

The most common cause of fear of old age is associated with the possibility of poverty.

- Napoleon Hill

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

- Bill Gates

People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’

- Gary Vaynerchuk

With DNA, you have to be able to tell which genes are turned on or off. Current DNA sequencing cannot do that. The next generation of DNA sequencing needs to be able to do this. If somebody invents this, then we can start to very precisely identify cures for diseases.

- Elon Musk

If you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you.

- Brian Tracy

Steve Jobs didn’t really set the direction of my Apple I and Apple II designs but he did the more important part of turning them into a product that would change the world. I don’t deny that.

- Steve Wozniak

[In June 2011] I mean, what is Twitter? Ask 100 people, ‘what is the world?’ and you’ll get a thousand different answers. The same is true for Twitter. It’s different things to different people. Twitter is the world.

- Jack Dorsey

Vision without execution is just hallucination.

- Henry Ford

Purpose is a soft virtue — but it’s what gives you steel in your spine.

- Rich Karlgaard

I know when one door closes God will open up another door. What was meant for my harm God will use to my advantage. I’m not only coming out, I will come out better off than I was before.

- Joel Olsteen

I DECLARE God’s dream for my life is coming to pass. It will not be stopped by people, disappointments, or adversities. God has solutions to every problem I will ever face already lined up. The right people and the right breaks are in my future. I will fulfill my destiny. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

As he brooded over how to raise the money, he was informed by his father that he had always intended to give each of his children $1,000.00 at age twenty-one, and he now offered to advance John the money. But, John, he added lest his son expect miracles, the rate is ten. Having just retrieved a thousand dollars from Hewitt, Bill might have been looking for a high return on these idle funds. John knew his father too well to plead for a gift and accepted the 10 percent loan, which was higher than the prevailing rate. So on April 1, 1858 backed up by this borrowed money, John D. Rockefeller left Isaac Hewitt and joined the partnership of Clark and Rockefeller at 32 River Street (in Cleveland). At eighteen, he was catapulted to a partner’s rank in a commission house. It was a great thing to be my own employer, said Rockefeller. Mentally I swelled with pride – a partner in a firm with $4,000 capital! The moment was fraught with meaning for him and after his first day at work, he went back to the Cheshire Street house, fell to his knees, and implored the Lord to bless his new enterprise.

- Ron Chernow

This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.

- Clayton M. Christensen

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