Does that mean that we should never hire or promote an inexperienced manager who had not already learned to do what needs to be done in this assignment? The answer: it depends. 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
Notable Quotables
Kickstarter isn’t a profit center, it’s an organizer and an instigator.
- Seth Godin
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
Nothing happens until something is sold.
- Joe Ricketts
Opportunity is often missed because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
Well, it’s very clear that the Arab population is rising because they’d like to have a say in the running of their affairs, running of their government, and this is very legitimate.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it’s digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules – not just for governments but for private companies.
- Bill Gates
We always try to look three to five years out in the decisions we make and there’s no question that the Cisco brand, our opportunity in the commercial market and the evolution of our leaders are going to take us to the next level.
- John Chambers
I believe in motivating with humor. … – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
- Zig Ziglar
Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
- Dale Carnegie
The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.
- Peter Thiel
I’ve already figured out when I’m going to be No. 2 and No. 1.
- Sheldon Adelson
I did not like the way I looked in a pair of white pants.
- Sara Blakely
There was a moment when I was watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in ‘Badboys’ that I felt, you know, inspired. I don’t know if I was proud, because so many people do the work. Everyone’s part of a team that develops over the years and gives people chances. There have been some good moments watching people develop.
- Russell Simmons
You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It’s the image, not what you sing.
- Rod Stewart
It is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing what it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot . .
- Zig Ziglar
the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or—in this case—to count the pea pods.
- Timothy Ferriss
Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.
- Dale Carnegie
Outsiders are fascinated by the great fortunes being made inside China, but they pay less attention to the wealthy Chinese trying hard to get their money out of the country. Poorer Chinese just save everything they can and hope it will be enough. Every class of people in China takes the future deadly seriously.
- Peter Thiel
In a litigation-happy society, clear agreements often prevent small disagreements from becoming big ones.
- Harvey Mackay
In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not at all difficult for persons in good health to make money.
- P.T. Barnum
If you had to buy a new plane every time you flew somewhere, it would be incredibly expensive.
- Elon Musk
We do lots of Stuff. The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.
- Sergey Brin
The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.
- Seth Godin
She said, ‘My family is OK, John, but we lost everything.
- John Chambers
We are in control of the one asset that we all give the most f#%ks about, and that is time.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
We have most of the software industry running Autonomy.
- Larry Ellison
All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.
- Seth Godin
If I hadn’t given my money away, I’d have had more than anyone else on the planet.
- Bill Gates
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
- Henry Ford
Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.
- Larry Ellison
The War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of Fate.
- Winston Churchill
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
- Henry Ford
All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to Actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In war and policy one should always try to put oneself in the position of what Bismarck called “the Other Man”. The more fully and sympathetically a Minister can do this the better are his chances of being right. The more knowledge he possesses of the opposite point of view, the less puzzling it is to know what to do. But imagination without deep and full knowledge is a snare.
- Winston Churchill
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
- Elon Musk
One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
- Dale Carnegie
Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.
- John C. Maxwell
The people of Southwest have always been my pride, my joy and my love. Their indomitable dedication and esprit de corps have taken Southwest from a three-airplane dream to a 500-airplane reality.
- Herb Kelleher
Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.
- Dale Carnegie
How about we agree upon what our common American values are, which is let’s make this a true land of opportunity.
- Laurene Powell Jobs
Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
I am a self-made brat.
- Stephen Wynn
[Medco] had a different culture with respect to spending money. I believe health care demands that we be as frugal as possible and pay money for things that matter. We’re pretty frugal. Everybody has the same size offices. Everybody has the same size cube. There are no perks.
- George Paz
The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.
- Peter Thiel
The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks.
- Rupert Murdoch
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
I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.
- Richard Branson
Consider scheduling a daily meeting with your new executive. Require them to bring a comprehensive set of questions about everything they heard that day but did not completely understand.
- Ben Horowitz
Do the Right Thing.
- Phil Knight
Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man’s character.
- Thomas Edison
You can’t get too much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good.
- Jerry West
The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.
- Jeff Bezos
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
- Timothy Ferriss
9 out of ten new businesses fail in the first five years.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you’re able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power.
- Sergey Brin
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure
- Abraham Lincoln
When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.
- Peter Drucker
Churchill kept perspective on the crowds that gathered to hear him speak by conceding they would be twice as big if gathered to see him hanged.
- Winston Churchill
Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.
- Timothy Ferriss
You may have made a lot of wrong choices, but you’ve also made a lot of choices that were right. Focus on your good qualities. Focus on your victories. Get off the treadmill of guilt.
- Joel Olsteen
You are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.
- Zig Ziglar
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London
The way of the warrior: keep death in mind at all times. If a warrior keeps death in mind at all times and lives as though each day might be his last, he will conduct himself properly in all his actions.
- Principle of the Bushido
In his rigidgly compartmentalized life, each hour was tightly budgeted, whether for business, religion, family or exercise. Perhaps those daily rituals helped him deal with the underlying tensions that might otherwise have become ungovernable, for although he tried to project to an air of unhurried calm, he was under terrific strain the surface, was constantly on edge. In one of his few admissions of weakness he recalled, for years on end I never had a solid night’s sleep, worrying about how it was to come out…I tossed about in bed night after night worrying over the outcome…All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate for the anxiety of that period.
- Ron Chernow
Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.
- Jack Welch
When you want to do your homework, fill out your tax return, or see all the choices for a trip you want to take, you need a full-size screen.
- Bill Gates
Extraordinary results are directlydetermined by how narrow you can make your focus.
- Gary Keller
Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it.
- Harvey Mackay
I think there are more politicians in favor of electric cars than against. There are still some that are against, and I think the reasoning for that varies depending on the person, but in some cases, they just don’t believe in climate change – they think oil will last forever.
- Elon Musk
Lack of a well-defined purpose in life.
- Napoleon Hill
If your business is not a brand, it is just a commodity.
- Donald Trump
Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.
- Zig Ziglar
The record results for the third quarter once again demonstrate the ability of GE’s diverse mix of leading global businesses to deliver top-line growth, increased margins and strong cash generation.
- Jack Welch
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
- Howard Schultz
Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.
- Joel Olsteen
All successful people ‘think on paper.’
- Brian Tracy
One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness upon the part of the leader to do more than he requires of his followers.
- Napoleon Hill
I started NetSuite. NetSuite was my idea. I called up Evan Goldberg and said, ‘We’re going to do ERP on the Internet, software-as-a-service.’ Six months later Marc Benioff, finding out what NetSuite was doing, and kind of copied it.
- Larry Ellison
Real entrepreneurs have what I call the three Ps (and, trust me, none of them stands for ‘permission’). Real entrepreneurs have a ‘passion’ for what they’re doing, a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved, and a ‘purpose’ that drives them forward.
- Michael Dell
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.
- Michael Gerber
Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.
- Bill Gates
We build dwellings and thereafter they build us.
- Winston Churchill
The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitable of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.
- Timothy Ferriss
It partly depends on the currency regimes in place in the country.
- John Chambers
Don’t criticize them, they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.
- Dale Carnegie
The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.
- Bill Gates
We fully intend to capitalise on our strengths as this dynamic market continues to flourish.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The 1990’s sure aren’t like the 1980’s.
- Donald Trump
When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
- Warren Buffett
We have a very high churn rate, but as soon as we turn on email marketing to our user base, people will come back.” Yes, of course. The reason that people leave our service and don’t come back is that we have not been sending them enough spam. That makes total sense to me, too.
- Ben Horowitz
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
- Jack Welch
The marriage partner is not really the problem. No other person can ultimately make you happy. You must learn how to be happy within yourself.
- Joel Olsteen
You don’t even really need a place. But you feel like you’re doing something. That is what coffee is. And that is one of the geniuses of the new coffee culture.
- Jerry Seinfeld
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
Had the people who started Facebook decided to stay at Harvard, they would not have been able to build the company, and by the time they graduated in 2006, that window probably would have come and gone.
- Peter Thiel
Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.
- Zig Ziglar
Ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first.
- Winston Churchill
