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.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
The most successful companies make the core progression—to first dominate a specific niche and then scale to adjacent markets—a part of their founding narrative.
- Peter Thiel
I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.
- Steve Martin
Social and digital media is a bullet train, and that bullet train is not coming home.
- Howard Schultz
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
- Jack Welch
Simply stated, the value of a business today is the sum of all the money it will make in the future.
- Peter Thiel
Part of company culture is path-dependent – it’s the lessons you learn along the way.
- Jeff Bezos
There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable.
- Bill Gates
We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason.
- Michael Bloomberg
Your list is like a garden, tend it well.
- Michael Levine
We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.
- Joel Olsteen
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
- Og Mandino
They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.
- Clayton M. Christensen
I think the most important thing that I think everyone in America must have is belief that wherever they live, whatever station they have in life, that the American dream is alive and well. I think the fracturing of trust and confidence is in the American dream.
- Howard Schultz
I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.
- Jeff Bezos
Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.
- Howard Schultz
I’ve done a number of Super Bowl ads. And that is the best advertising of the year. That is when people realize they’re going to be compared directly against other ads.
- Jerry Seinfeld
If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.
- Dale Carnegie
Take time to be kind and to say ‘thank you.’
- Zig Ziglar
Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome.
- Zig Ziglar
Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.
- Napoleon Hill
If I designed a computer with 200 chips, I tried to design it with 150. And then I would try to design it with 100. I just tried to find every trick I could in life to design things real tiny.
- Steve Wozniak
Control, control, you must learn control!
- Yoda
I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.
- Herbert Bayard Swope
The question isn’t ‘What do we want to know about people?’ It’s, ‘What do people want to tell about themselves?
- Mark Zuckerberg
In the game of life, before you get anything out, you must put something in!
- Zig Ziglar
Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.
- Thomas Edison
We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.
- Mark Zuckerberg
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
American running shoes were still made by offshoots of the tire companies, cheap and terrible. They cost five bucks and gave you blood blisters…
- Phil Knight
Sometimes, we’re so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing.
- Seth Godin
Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.
- Peter Drucker
Always pass on what you have learned.
- Yoda
Napoleon was criticized for giving toys” to war-hardened veterans, and Napoleon replied, Men are ruled by toys.
- Dale Carnegie
What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.
- John Chambers
When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem, we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about ourselves.
- Dale Carnegie
You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.
- Jeff Bezos
Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.
- Ray Kroc
The more we share what’s happening around us, the more we understand how someone lives their life. The greater the understanding we have, the more empathy we have for each other. By and large, that reduces conflicts.
- Jack Dorsey
We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.
- Bill Gates
Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money.
- Donald Trump
If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business.
- Peter Thiel
The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.
- Ray Kroc
You are going to fire Mark Hurd and hire Leo? What I said at the time was that this was the best idea since the Apple board fired Steve Jobs. Really brilliant.
- Larry Ellison
There’s no single company in the whole world that has a big-scale production base and at the same time has screening and distribution channels. Wanda Group is the first one in the world.
- Wang Jianlin
You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.
- Bill Gates
In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
- Donald Trump
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
- Martin Luther King Jr.
There are ways of fighting for your interests. I never do something in business that I wouldn’t do in life.
- Vladimir Potanin
Lack of Enthusiasm.
- Napoleon Hill
Put everything you’ve got into what you’re doing. Be totally focused–nothing should be haphazard.
- Donald Trump
If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.
- Ben Horowitz
The reason you might choose to embrace the artist within you now is that this is the path to (cue the ironic music) security.
- Seth Godin
Customers today are strongly value oriented. But just what does that mean? Customers tell us that value means the results they receive in relation to the total costs (both the price and other costs to customers incurred in acquiring the service).
- Gary W. Lo
We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.
- Michael Bloomberg
[In February 2011 on Square.] Starting a startup after twitter is so much easier than before.
- Jack Dorsey
Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.
- Sergey Brin
Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Winston Churchill
In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.
- Ben Horowitz
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
- Ralph Lauren
I love comedy. That’s what got me into the arts. I don’t even know how to categorize myself anymore.
- Steve Martin
Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive.
- Elon Musk
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
- John Buchan
Well… I graduated from the business school of Northumberland University in Newcastle.
- Alexei Mordashov
You will find only what you bring in.
- Yoda
We are currently not planning on conquering the world.
- Sergey Brin
General and undifferentiated pitches don’t say anything about why a recruit should join your company instead of many others.
- Peter Thiel
The response to the Starbucks brand has been phenomenal in our international markets.
- Howard Schultz
I don’t think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You’re always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it’ll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it’s always meant to be something. So, to me, there’s no practicing; there’s only editing and publishing or not publishing.
- Steve Martin
A lady came up to me one day and said ‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which I replied ‘I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.
- Winston Churchill
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.
- Zig Ziglar
I always try to acknowledge what someone’s done well before talking about what could be done better. – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
Saying yes makes you fail to meet expectations of theobligation.
- David Nilssen
Once a decision is made…problems have to be solved.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Innovation could impact everything…
- Jack Dorsey
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
- Winston Churchill
NO PURCHASE SHOULD EVER BE MADE IN A BUSINESS UNLESS IT IS JUSTIFIED BY AN INCREASE IN SALES.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose . . . only then will you learn the game.
- Zig Ziglar
One thing I’ve always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they’ll tell you, ‘We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.
- Bill Gates
I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.
- Phil Knight
I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing videogames.
- Larry Ellison
We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.
- Napoleon Hill
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
- Thomas Edison
I just think that trusting God means we’re going to have unanswered questions, and God is so much bigger than us, we’re never going to understand them all.
- Joel Olsteen
The polar opposite business cliché warns that “the best product doesn’t always win.
- Peter Thiel
I will study and prepare myself, and someday the opportunity will come.
- Abraham Lincoln
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.
- Henry Ford
The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline–a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.
- James C. Collins
Step up to the front, select what you want, create your plan, put your plan into action, and follow through with Persistence. Capitalist America will not rest.
- Napoleon Hill
Don’t think small when you pray. God has a way to bring your dreams to pass if you’ll dare to be bold enough to ask.
- Joel Olsteen
Superstition of Prejudice.
- Napoleon Hill
While there’s always room for improvement, … we were very pleased with our results in what is a seasonally-challenging quarter.
- John Chambers
The spirit of Southwest Airlines is exuberant, it’s caring, it’s dedicated, it’s diligent, it’s fun, it’s rewarding, it’s a joy.
- Herb Kelleher
Most people have never thought through how they’re going to allocate their time. You need to make a decision in advance.
- Clayton M. Christensen
An organization’s capabilities reside in two places. The first is in its processes—the methods by which people have learned to transform inputs of labor, energy, materials, information, cash, and technology into outputs of higher value. The second is in the organization’s values, which are the criteria that managers and employees in the organization use when making prioritization decisions. People are quite flexible, in that they can be trained to succeed at quite different things. An employee of IBM, for example, can quite readily change the way he or she works, in order to work successfully in a small start-up company. But processes and values are not flexible. A process that is effective at managing the design of a minicomputer, for example, would be ineffective at managing the design of a desktop personal computer. Similarly, values that cause employees to prioritize projects to develop high-margin products, cannot simultaneously accord priority to low-margin products. The very processes and values that constitute an organization’s capabilities in one context, define its disabilities in another context.
- Clayton M. Christensen
Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.
- Howard Schultz
Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt.
- Seth Godin
When you cease to dream you cease to live.
- Malcolm Forbes
The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.
- James C. Collins
