U.K. companies are in very international and very competitive markets. If you look at PC penetration in the U.K., it is very similar to the United States market.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.
- Bill Gates
I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.
- James C. Collins
The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t.
- Zig Ziglar
Said another way, 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. When The Entrepreneur creates the model.
- Michael Gerber
Health is worth more than learning.
- Thomas Jefferson
What the Commission is seeking cuts the heart out of the strategic rationale of our deal.
- Jack Welch
There is no more important economic policy issue today than helping our nation remain the global innovation leader. To do this, our leadership must focus on an aggressive agenda to support math and science education, patent litigation reform, healthcare information technology, and research and development. We thank President Bush for his leadership and urge all members of Congress to address these issues in a comprehensive fashion to get the job done.
- John Chambers
Like any well designed software product, Windows is designed, developed and tested as an integrated whole.
- Bill Gates
When you give directives to a child, especially a teenager, you must consider the nature of your child.
- Zig Ziglar
When I hear a man say that his childhood was the happiest time of his life, I think (puff) my friend, you have had a pretty poor life.
- Winston Churchill
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
- Winston Churchill
If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.
- Timothy Ferriss
The buyer needs to talk at least 70% of the time.
- Clay Clark
Of course I’m an egoist. Where do you get if you aren’t?
- Winston Churchill
People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Recovery continues to gain momentum on a global basis.
- John Chambers
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.
- P.T. Barnum
Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don’t live angry, let go now!
- Joel Olsteen
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
- Winston Churchill
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.
- Dale Carnegie
I pay about a third in taxes, I give away about a third, and I follow the law.
- Ray Dalio
The work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Psychological despotism is basically contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does not assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is healthy while everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody else is weak. It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes that the manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions of foolish arrogance.
- Peter Drucker
My biggest hobby is hanging out with my family and kids.
- Joel Olsteen
If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.
- Donald Trump
When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts.
- Larry Ellison
If you’re brilliant and undiscovered and underappreciated (in whatever field you choose), then you’re being too generous about your definition of brilliant.
- Seth Godin
FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON THE NUMBERS In the second example, I managed the team to a set of numbers that did not fully capture what I wanted. I wanted a great product that customers would love with high quality and on time—in that order. Unfortunately, the metrics that I set did not capture those priorities. At a basic level, metrics are incentives. By measuring quality, features, and schedule and discussing them at every staff meeting, my people focused intensely on those metrics to the exclusion of other goals. The metrics did not describe the real goals and I distracted the team as a result. Interestingly, I see this same problem play out in many consumer Internet startups. I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product. It’s important to supplement a great product vision with a strong discipline around the metrics, but if you substitute metrics for product vision, you will not get what you want.
- Ben Horowitz
Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.
- P.T. Barnum
When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.
- Jack Ma
Creating ideas that spread and connecting the disconnected are the two pillars of our new society, and both of them require the posture of the artist.
- Seth Godin
I’m a huge believer in clarity.
- Ben Horowitz
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
- Winston Churchill
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
- George Soros
I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.
- Seth Godin
Apple has a complex suite of proprietary technologies, both in hardware (like superior touchscreen materials) and software (like touchscreen interfaces purpose-designed for specific materials).
- Peter Thiel
Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.
- Walt Disney
If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
- Winston Churchill
Strive to make every person feel special. After all, every person you meet is made in the image of God.
- Joel Olsteen
Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.
- John C. Maxwell
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
- Warren Buffett
Everything popular is wrong.
- Oscar Wilde
Lack of A Well Defined Power of Decision.
- Napoleon Hill
I usually describe myself as an engineer. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.
- Elon Musk
I like definitive things.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.
- Bill Gates
People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now.
- Bill Gates
My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.
- Sara Blakely
China is investing in factories in Eastern Europe, not because their labor costs are lower, but because they want to be closer to their markets.
- Michael Bloomberg
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
- W. Clement Stone
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
- Zig Ziglar
A man who succeeds in life must sometimes go against the current.
- Ron Chernow
I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.
- Joel Olsteen
If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?
- Ben Horowitz
In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.
- Peter Thiel
we can not prepare for defeat and expect to live a life in Victory.
- Joel Olsteen
The bigger we get as a company, the more important it becomes for us to shift responsibility and authority toward the front lines, toward the department manager who’s stocking the shelves and talking to the customer. When we were much smaller, I probably wasn’t as quick to catch on to this idea as I do should have been. But as an avid student of management theory, back in the mid-seventies I started reading the work of W. Edwards Deming, the famous statistician who taught so much to the Japanese about improving their productivity and competitiveness.
- Sam Walton
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligent and honest purpose as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
- Thomas Edison
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
- Bill Gates
Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.
- Winston Churchill
When your hobbies get in the way of your work – that’s OK, but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves… well.
- Steve Martin
Already know you that which you need.
- Yoda
Short words are best, and old words when short are best of all.
- Winston Churchill
Our teachers deserve better feedback.
- Bill Gates
Success comes from doing the hard part. When the hard part is all you’ve got, you’re more likely to do it.And this is precisely why it’s difficult to focus. Because focusing means acknowledging that you just signed up for the hard part.
- Seth Godin
Maintain ‘baseball cards’ and/or ‘believability matrixes’ for your people. Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.
- Ray Dalio
An idea that can change the course of the company can come from anywhere.
- Jack Dorsey
I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society. And I think talking in everyday terms and making sure people can understand it – I think that’s important.
- Joel Olsteen
Starting a company is a very tough thing. There’s a friend of mine, Bill Lee, whose phrase is ‘starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.’ So you should certainly expect that it’s going to be very hard. It’s going to be harder than getting a job somewhere by a pretty good margin and the odds of you losing the money that you invested or your friends invested is pretty high. I mean, those are just the basic facts. So if you don’t mind things being really hard and high risk, then starting a company is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s probably unwise. It will certainly stress you out. So I think you have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.
- Elon Musk
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
Positive energy is the ability to get other people revved up. People who energize can inspire their team to take on the impossible and enjoy the hell out of doing it. In fact, people would arm wrestle for a chance to work with them.
- Jack Welch
The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.
- Joel Olsteen
The industrial age is ending, and a new one is beginning. It produces art instead of stuff and it rewards gracefulness.
- Seth Godin
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 Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We’ve spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars, because they told us to do it. Why aren’t they paying for it? They don’t like Qaddafi, Qaddafi’s been a terrible thorn in their side.
- Donald Trump
Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I’d do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.
- Steve Martin
Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe ten percent to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want to put it on my business card.
- Bill Gates
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.
- Henry Ford
Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.
- Elon Musk
Do you ever worry’ asked Dale Carnegie, I replied: ‘No. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe that every-thing will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about?’
- Henry Ford
I have the favor of God. I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I’m strong. I’m healthy.
- Joel Olsteen
I am more of a creative person. I recognize that about myself, which is why I hired my weaknesses early on. I think if most founders don’t relinquish some control, then we hold back the development of our companies.
- Sara Blakely
By 2018, an estimated 63 percent of all new U.S. jobs will require workers with an education beyond high school. For our young people to get those jobs, they first need to graduate from high school ready to start a postsecondary education.
- Bill Gates
There’s no mystery in business success. If you do each day’s task successfully and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.
- John D. Rockefeller
My little girls are the most beautiful women in the world. I am a lucky, lucky man. I will spend every day making sure that they know this.
- Russell Simmons
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
- Zig Ziglar
For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.
- Dale Carnegie
I predict at least one of the rookie drivers will win a race this year. With this strong of a group, two or three of them will likely win.
- Ed Clark
But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict. Most fights inside a company happen when colleagues compete for the same responsibilities. Startups face an especially high risk of this since job roles are fluid at the early stages. Eliminating competition makes it easier for everyone to build the kinds of long-term relationships that transcend mere professionalism. More than that, internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all. When a startup fails, we often imagine it succumbing to predatory rivals in a competitive ecosystem. But every company is also its own ecosystem, and factional strife makes it vulnerable to outside threats. Internal conflict is like an autoimmune disease: the technical cause of death may be pneumonia, but the real cause remains hidden from plain view.
- Peter Thiel
When it’s too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley.
- Sergey Brin
You must be the change to wish to see in the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth
- Ray Kroc
It’s not the situation, but whether we react negative or respond positive to the situation that is important.
- Zig Ziglar
A number of people in the United States, almost everyone, is using plastic cards to pay for things, but it’s extremely difficult to accept these cards. So let’s make it’s easy and take more and more of the friction out as we can.
- Jack Dorsey
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.
- Winston Churchill
Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.
- Phil Knight
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.
- Timothy Ferriss
Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.
- George Soros
