It’s harder, but we’re still finding oil in Oklahoma today. The bar has been raised on startup companies, but it can still be done. Every regulation and every rule limits you, but, yes, it can still be done. That’s the beauty of living in a free country and having the freedom to have an idea and become an entrepreneur.
- Harold Hamm
Notable Quotables
The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries.
- Elon Musk
The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work.
- Robert Kiyosaki
As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?
- Dr. Spencer Johnson
No one ever wants to see his or her name linked to anything bad. Conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you can.
- Harvey Mackay
We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.
- Bill Gates
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin
A good culture is like the old RIP routing protocol: Bad news travels fast. Good news travels slow.
- Ben Horowitz
If you want to build a dynasty, you need to always be focused on getting better and beating last year’s performance in everything you do. You want to eliminate peaks and valleys, what we call boom, splat, and go for a good steady incline.
- David Novak
Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
- W. Clement Stone
Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.
- Clay Clark
But there seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge.
- Peter Drucker
First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund.
- Peter Thiel
What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
- Napoleon Hill
I saw them before you were born. I came here first in 1900. [Reporter: “Do they look the same?”] Well, the principle seems the same. The water still keeps falling over. 1943, NIAGARA FALLS.
- Winston Churchill
Macau has been steady. The shocking, unexpected government is the one in Washington.
- Stephen Wynn
Some things are much easier to see in others than in yourself
- Ben Horowitz
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
- Yoda
Un cambio de actitud Lo que diferencia a los individuos exitosos de aquellos que languidecen es exactamente lo mismo que separa a las organizaciones innovadoras y en crecimiento de aquellas que se estancan y mueren. Los ganadores han convertido la iniciativa en una pasión y en una práctica. Adelante, prepara una lista de las personas y organizaciones a las que admiras. Apuesto a que el séptimo imperativo es lo que las hace destacar. Como ves, el reto no consiste en perfeccionar tu capacidad de saber cuándo empezar o cuándo mantenerte al margen, sino en adoptar la costumbre de empezar.
- Seth Godin
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
- Thomas Edison
You probably can’t be the Google of 2014 in terms of compensation or perks, but you can be like the Google of 1999 if you already have good answers about your mission and team.
- Peter Thiel
Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.
- Dale Carnegie
People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children.
- Dale Carnegie
Hong Kong has, throughout it’s history, experienced periods of uncertainties… I believe that the virtues of Hong Kong people – diligent, flexible and entrepreneurial – will once again overcome the obstacles before us.
- Cheng Yu-tung
You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.
- Henry Ford
Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.
- Winston Churchill
I’m a job creator.
- Stephen Wynn
Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, where the population growth is very high, whereby you don’t have the mortgage low yet. Still the demand outstrips supply by much.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I may be over the top on this, but I just don’t want to like my competitors. I want my people to believe that whenever he and our other competitors succeed, we will be less able to do all the things we want to do.
- Phil Knight
If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it’s the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.
- Michael Bloomberg
Fortune favors the bold.
- Virgil
I’m in a different position than most CEO’s. I’m a founder. I’m not a hired CEO. Now, I can be fired by the board, but most CEO’s are hired by the board.
- Howard Schultz
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan
We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out.
- Seth Godin
It enjoys strong network effects from its content ecosystem: thousands of developers write software for Apple devices because that’s where hundreds of millions of users are, and those users stay on the platform because it’s where the apps are.
- Peter Thiel
If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.
- Bill Gates
We’re extremely adroit at hiding our fear. Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we’re afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.
- Seth Godin
Start where you stand and with what you have
- George Washington Carver
A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.
- Peter Thiel
The Buck Stops Here
- Harry Truman
Velocity and drive comes from your desire to achieve.
- Jim Cathcart
Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.
- Zig Ziglar
The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.
- Harvey Mackay
I think that people will always want music; I think that the form that they will get it in, or distributed to them from, and the price they pay for it is what’s up in question.
- Ronald Perelman
Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.
- Bill Gates
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold. Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits by trafficking in ideas.
- Seth Godin
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.
- Benjamin Franklin
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.
- Henry Ford
A company needs lots of smart, super-engaged employees who can identify its particular weaknesses and help it improve them.
- Ben Horowitz
Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your options or shut them down.
- Jack Welch
A broad trend I’m completely obsessed with is mobile commerce. Like completely. I’m completely convinced that everybody’s going to be buying from their mobile devices. Whoever can claim that space or be in that space, I’m very interested in.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, real estate is always good, as far as I’m concerned.
- Donald Trump
Leaders don’t rise to the pinnacle of success without developing the right set of attitudes and habits, they make every day a masterpiece.
- John C. Maxwell
Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.
- Napoleon Hill
We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
- Winston Churchill
Ethics to me is very important.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
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
If you’re in business, first and foremost, you have to be nice. Show your customers that you care.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested?
- James C. Collins
Patience is a key element of success.
- Bill Gates
A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The question isn’t ‘What do we want to know about people?’ It’s, ‘What do people want to tell about themselves?
- Mark Zuckerberg
Over the course of your career, your Detroit will surely call you at one point or another. If you can go, that’s great. If you can’t, make peace with the reasons why.
- Jack Welch
I’m truly passionate about basketball. I’m not as passionate about baseball as I am about basketball, but I watch baseball and I watch football. I love sports in general.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Starbucks has a role and a meaningful relationship with people that is not only about the coffee.
- Howard Schultz
Yes, it’s absolutely true that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly – until you can learn to do it well.
- Zig Ziglar
If you want to be obsessed to be your best, you must get ride of the negative things that are weighing you down.
- George Foreman
On the Internet you get continuous innovation, so every year the streams are a little better.
- Reed Hastings
The slowdown in futures orders clearly signals that revenue growth in the second half of fiscal 1998 will be below our previous expectations. This is largely a result of the slowdown in the Asia Pacific market, where we now anticipate more moderate revenue growth in fiscal 1998 after increasing 84 percent on a constant dollar basis in fiscal 1997.
- Phil Knight
In a start-up company where there are no processes in place to get things done, then everything that is done must be done by individual people–resources. In this circumstance, it would be risky to draft someone with no experience to do the job–because in the absence of processes that can guide people, experienced people need to lead. But in established companies where much of the guidance to employees is provided by processes, and is less dependent upon managers with detailed, hands-on experience, then it makes sense to hire or promote someone who needs to learn from experience.
- Clayton M. Christensen
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.
- Timothy Ferriss
I’m a creative guy. And I only do businesses as a result of like I’ve – I’m try to find what my gifts are and give them immediately. As soon as I get them and I understand, I give them back.
- Russell Simmons
I have always respected education, which is why I actually went back secretly and taught school for eight years.
- Steve Wozniak
Do I take criticism of Starbucks personally? Of course I do.
- Howard Schultz
Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.
- Walt Disney
I know I could be the host of ‘SportsCenter’ in two years if I changed my show today to sports.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Do you know why the nose of the bull dog is sloped backwards? So it can keep on breathing without ever letting go.
- Winston Churchill
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
I learned about why startups should train their people when I worked at Netscape. People at McDonald’s get trained for their positions, but people with far more complicated jobs don’t. It makes no sense.
- Ben Horowitz
My first large-scale community development opportunity was the formation of the Mission Viejo Co. – a partnership with the O’Neill Family, who owned Rancho Mission Viejo. As the young president of the company, I had the responsibility for master planning, master building and implementing the new community’s development plans.
- Donald Bren
Treat them (the employees) well, but see that they work.
- John D. Rockefeller
Everyone has an idea. But it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea.
- Jack Dorsey
If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away “operating.” He may be an excellent man. But he is certain to waste his knowledge and ability and to throw away what little effectiveness he might have achieved. What the executive needs are criteria which enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.
- Peter Drucker
If you say too much or mix in multiple pitches, you diffuse your goal. You must give the media a pitch they can hit.
- Michael Levine
You can’t have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.
- Herb Kelleher
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines, the one who actually talk to the customer, are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble within it, you must listen to what your associates are telling you.
- Sam Walton
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
- Haruki Murakami
We did no designs there, no breadboarding, no prototyping, no planning of products. We did no manufacturing there. The garage didn’t serve much purpose, except it was something for us to feel was our home. We had no money. You have to work out of your home when you have no money.
- Steve Wozniak
Transparency is terribly important in a situation like this, as a quick reaction time, because news today is not immediate. It travels globally on the Internet. In our YouTube culture, dramatic videos take on a life of their own, beyond anyone’s control. – (on crisis management)
- David Novak
I don’t want to use my creative energy on somebody else’s user interface.
- Jeff Bezos
Most people consider me an optimist because I laughingly state that I would take my last two dollars and buy a money belt.
- Zig Ziglar
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffett
Education isn’t a problem until it serves as a buffer rom the world and a refuge from the risk of failure.
- Seth Godin
We know that if you just were to take the drugs that you were supposed to take for diabetes or hypertension, just take it, as opposed to not take it, we could save $7,000, $3,000 per patient per year.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.
- Warren Buffett
Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.
- Malcolm Forbes
One clear-cut result is worth a dozen wise precautions.
- Winston Churchill
Leading, not following We’ve been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don’t have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person—to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference.
- Seth Godin
