The most important thing to understand is that the job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive. When I was managing thousands of people at Hewlett-Packard after the sale of Opsware, there was an incredible number of incoming demands on my time. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Little companies wanted to partner with me or sell themselves to me, people in my organization needed approvals, other business units needed my help, customers wanted my attention, and so forth. As a result, I spent most of my time optimizing and tuning the existing business. Most of the work that I did was “incoming.” In fact, most skilled big company executives will tell you that if you have more than three new initiatives in a quarter, you are trying to do too much. As a result, big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup executive, nothing happens unless you make it happen. In the early days of a company, you have to take eight to ten new initiatives a day or the company will stand still. There is no inertia that’s putting the company in motion. Without massive input from you, the company will stay at rest.
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.
- Jack Welch
We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.
- Winston Churchill
That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided, because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day. If you’re deciding whether to bring someone on board, the decision is binary. Ken Kesey was right: you’re either on the bus or off the bus.
- Peter Thiel
We allow no geniuses around our Studio.
- Walt Disney
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
- Winston Churchill
Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.
- Joel Olsteen
All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.
- Walt Disney
The story about GE that hasn’t been told is the value of an informal place. I think it’s a big thought. I don’t think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.
- Jack Welch
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.
- Reid Hoffman
If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
- Harvey Mackay
Actresses are kind of a little crazy.
- Russell Simmons
Imagination is more important that knowledge
- Albert Einstein
You don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve.
- Harvey Mackay
One challenge is the Peter Principle. Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book of that name, the Peter Principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain being unable to earn further promotions.
- Ben Horowitz
The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.
- Elon Musk
An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, “If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea.” Churchill’s response, “Ma’am if you were my wife I would drink it.
- Winston Churchill
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
- Stephen R. Covey
We can schedule for it. Thursday, April 3rd, 3:05…start something. We can train for it, plan for it, announce it, and even hire for it. If initiating is as essential to the modern organization as it appears, we better be doing all of that and more.
- Seth Godin
To be willing to do new things you don’t think you’ll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just to tolerate it, but to prefer it. One way to achieve that is to set out to experience things you’re sure you won’t like. To have conversations that are frightening. Becoming generous beyond measure, just to see what happens. And most of all, setting out to fail. Failing helps you see how far is too far, failing helps remind you that failing isn’t fatal, and most of all, failing opens you up to succeeding.
- Seth Godin
The bottom line is that you need to do follow-up or you will be mediocre.
- Chet Holmes
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
I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.
- Elon Musk
Some people are so belligerent in their communication style that people just stop talking when they are in the room. If every time anyone brings up an issue with the marketing organization, the VP of marketing jumps down their throats, then guess what topic will never come up? This behavior can become so bad that nobody brings up any topic when the jerk is in the room. As a result, communication across the executive staff breaks down and the entire company slowly degenerates. Note that this only happens if the jerk in question is unquestionably brilliant. Otherwise, nobody will care when she attacks them. The bite only has impact if it comes from a big dog. If one of your big dogs destroys communication on your staff, you need to send her to the pound.
- Ben Horowitz
Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- Zig Ziglar
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose . . . only then will you learn the game.
- Zig Ziglar
The outside of a horse is good for the inside of man.
- Winston Churchill
I would like to see anyone be able to achieve their dreams, and that’s what this organization does.
- Sergey Brin
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.
- Henry Ford
Keep it simple. Tell the truth. People can smell the truth.
- Stephen Wynn
I’m a normal guy.
- Jack Ma
Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.
- Joel Olsteen
Like it or not, life is a series of competitions. You may be competing for a grade, a spot on a team, a job, or the largest account in town. The higher your self-esteem is, the better you get along with yourself, with others, and the more you’ll accomplish.
- Harvey Mackay
Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Approach each customer with the idea of helping them solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.
- Brian Tracy
The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it’s always a red flag when entrepreneurs talk about getting 1% of a $100 billion market. In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it’s hard to ever reach that 1%. And even if you do succeed in gaining a small foothold, you’ll have to be satisfied with keeping the lights on: cutthroat competition means your profits will be zero.
- Peter Thiel
When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.
- Howard Schultz
We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing’s case, the risks do not always come without pain.
- James C. Collins
Deep knowledge from your manager goes a long way toward motivating you. And I have a pretty good capability for that.
- Larry Page
I think they are fine. I don’t think you have a choice between iPad models so that’s just saying that the iPad is good … that’s a very different statement (and contrary to the implication) that, if I chose not to upgrade now, less than a year after my last upgrade, then I, Woz, am saying that the new Apple iPad is bad.
- Steve Wozniak
However, for equity to create commitment rather than conflict, you must allocate it very carefully. Giving everyone equal shares is usually a mistake: every individual has different talents and responsibilities as well as different opportunity costs, so equal amounts will seem arbitrary and unfair from the start. On the other hand, granting different amounts up front is just as sure to seem unfair. Resentment at this stage can kill a company, but there’s no ownership formula to perfectly avoid it.
- Peter Thiel
The thought of my mortality – I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your number’s up.
- Sara Blakely
Improvement is to invent something completely new.
- Peter Thiel
you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
- Dale Carnegie
The Cul-de-Sac ( French for “dead end” ) … is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes.
- Seth Godin
We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.
- Jeff Bezos
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
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
The best things that capture your imagination are ones you hadn’t thought of before and that aren’t talked about in the news all the time.
- Steve Wozniak
I don’t want to kill ads. I think advertising is great, and I’m very aware that there’s multiple revenue streams in television, subscription and advertising. But I also don’t want to put my head in the sand, and I think the world is changing.
- Charles Ergen
Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.
- Bill Gates
Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right. When this process works, it means our failures are relatively small in size (most experiments can start small), and when we hit on something that is really working for customers, we double-down on it with hopes to turn it into an even bigger success.
- Jeff Bezos
One who works their tail off because they hate working for other people so much, but who has no concept of what they are doing and who justifies their poverty when anyone more successful gives them advice by saying their business is different.
- Clay Clark
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
- Winston Churchill
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
I never lie, so if somebody asked me a question, I told them.
- Michael Bloomberg
Be honest, always.
- Jack Dorsey
The Bible says, See that none of you repays another evil for evil, but always aim to show kindness and seek to do good to one another and to everybody.
- Joel Olsteen
I built a steel plant from the grassroots, so I learned all the nuts and bolts. When there was a problem, I would be able to guide them, though I am not a technical person.
- Lakshmi Mittal
I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.
- Joel Olsteen
I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.
- Oprah Winfrey
Apply the blacksmith’s homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.
- Dale Carnegie
I wish HP nothing but the best. I think HP is an icon. Those of us who had their careers in the Valley think of Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett as role models. We would love to be half as good as they were.
- Larry Ellison
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
- George Soros
The time will never be right to start. Today is your day. Study successful people, do what they do, and you too will be successful.
- Clay Clark
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
- Albert Einstein
Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
- James C. Collins
The laws of business physics have been broken in terms of how many customers you can acquire and how fast. No one in history has ever acquired 450 million customers in the same amount of time that WhatsApp did
- Ben Horowitz
As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?
- Dr. Spencer Johnson
I believe that uncertainty is really my spirit’s way of whispering, I’m in flux. I can’t decide for you. Something is off-balance here.
- Oprah Winfrey
Our goal all along was that fans would come in and wouldn’t notice any loss of amenities there for them, and I’m very comfortable that’s going to be the case.
- Ed Clark
The financial world has long been missing immediacy, transparency, and approachability and this is what’s needed now.
- Jack Dorsey
I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.
- Elon Musk
Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine.
- Ray Dalio
People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now.
- Bill Gates
Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.
- John C. Maxwell
This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors.
- Winston Churchill
The time is always right to do what is right.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to. It’s that simple.
- Phil Knight
If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- Ben Horowitz
You have to believe in what you do in order to get what you want.
- Larry Ellison
The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers
- Sam Walton
G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. … We found that they don’t predict anything.
- Laszlo Bock
Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.
- Winston Churchill
Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.
- Walt Disney
SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.
- Elon Musk
If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.
- Zig Ziglar
You either trust someone day one until they prove you wrong, or you say, ‘I don’t trust you until you show me I can trust you.’ I’m the latter.
- Charles Ergen
Despite the office rent in Hong Kong generally declining, the Group’s rental is resilient as the major rental properties owned by the Group are retail shopping properties situated in the new towns and mass transportation network.
- Lee Shau Kee
To add value to others, one must first value others.
- John C. Maxwell
God’s desire is that we excel.
- Joel Olsteen
$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.
- Timothy Ferriss
Through the wisdom of its government leaders and the entrepreneurship of its private sector, India has rapidly risen to become a major force in the global economy, … Cisco believes that the Internet, and related technologies, will be a key enabler for India to achieve its goal of becoming a developed nation.
- John Chambers
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
- Warren Buffett
Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.”
- Sam Walton
You have to be responsible when you’re running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.
- Ben Horowitz
People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.
- John C. Maxwell
There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way.
- Christopher Morley
The future is already here—it is just unevenly distributed.
- William Gibson
We believe our growth rate indicates that Cisco continues to gain market share against our traditional competitors in most product sectors.
- John Chambers
