With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated. They can’t type. They can’t create documents.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
- Randy Pausch
When interviewing candidates, it’s helpful to watch for small distinctions that indicate whether they view the world through the “me” prism or the “team” prism.
- Ben Horowitz
I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.
- Jack Welch
If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.
- Bill Gates
You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn’t work. And what’s good theater and what’s good politics isn’t necessarily good economic policy.
- Michael Bloomberg
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
Plan, organize, integrate, motivate, and measure.
- Peter Drucker
Artists, actors, people like that, they live in a very strange bubble of their own. They’re mollycoddled; they’re highly privileged.
- Stephen Wynn
If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.
- Jeff Bezos
Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.
- John Naisbitt
When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.
- Napoleon Hill
Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.
- Elon Musk
His strategy would be to subjugate one part of the battlefield, consolidate his forces, then move briskly on to the next conquest. His victory over the Cleveland refiners would be the first but alos the most controversial compaign of his career.
- Ron Chernow
IT’S SAID that you can only live life forward and understand it backward.
- Jack Welch
You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.
- Joel Olsteen
When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
- Warren Buffett
Of this I am quite sure. If we open up a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
- Winston Churchill
In order to deal with all the medical cost demands and other challenges in the U.S., as we look to raise that revenue, the rich will have to pay slightly more. That’s quite clear.
- Bill Gates
Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.
- Steve Wozniak
Don’t live worried, frustrated or upset because of what somebody did or what didn’t work out. Come back to a place of peace. It’s not going to work against you; it’s going to work for you.
- 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
Don’t be different just to be different. Be different to be better.
- Seth Godin
Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.
- Jack Ma
The first key factor, I believe, is unity. If a family is not united, how then can we unite our colleagues? If we don’t love our brothers or our family, how then can we go ahead to love our colleagues. So our tradition really is about the human factor and talents, and we are dependent on the human factor. Therefore we have this corporate slogan – The markets of the world can belong to our corporation, and so can the world’s foremost human talents; The markets of the world belongs to us, and so are the world’s vast resources of raw materials. Similarly, if we can gain access to it, then the world’s financial funding belongs to us as well. Therefore, of foremost importance is access to human talents. Of course, a slogan is only something that we speak of. Of greater importance, is to truly have access to human talents. Towards that purpose, we must first be united and possess love. Our family is very united. And for the sake of the company, we innovated – we introduced western-style (corporate) culture into our company 30 years ago.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.
- Seth Godin
Okay, let’s talk about cartoon labels for half a second – some people think anything with a dog or a car or a colorful alien is garbage, which is not true. Look at Big Moose Red. It’s, like, a $6 wine with a cheesy label, and it’s actually a solid wine.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
That was annoying but not entirely unexpected. It’s not a huge shock, given what’s going on down there.
- Ed Clark
Age doesn’t matter: an open mind does.
- Timothy Ferriss
I wish I could do a lot of things different. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I’d go, ‘Okay, I’ll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.’ Really. But I’ve made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?
- Steve Martin
I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.
- Joel Olsteen
DAY TWENTY I DECLARE that I am calm and peaceful. I will not let people or circumstances upset me. I will rise above every difficulty, knowing that God has given me the power to remain calm. I choose to live my life happy, bloom where I am planted, and let God fight my battles. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking tartar sauce with you.
- Zig Ziglar
As the economy shifts, large (and small) organizations are discovering that this brainwashing thing was a huge error. You can’t snooze your way to greatness. You can’t optimize your way to surprising growth. You can’t organize your way into blamelessness.
- Seth Godin
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
Walking in circles Dr. Jan Souman, of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, studied what happens to us when we have no map, no compass, no way to determine landmarks. I’m not talking about a metaphor—he researched what happens to people lost in the woods or stumbling around the Sahara, with no north star, no setting sun to guide them. It turns out we walk in circles. Try as we might to walk in a straight line, to get out of the forest or the desert, we end up back where we started. Our instincts aren’t enough. In the words of Dr. Souman, “Don’t trust your senses because even though you might think you are walking in a straight line when you’re not.” Human nature is to need a map. If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow.
- Seth Godin
The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.
- Richard Branson
There is never a bad time to start a business – unless you want to start a mediocre one.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Before you can be sure of your ability to transmute DESIRE into its monetary equivalent, you will require SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE of the service, merchandise or profession which you intend to offer in return for fortune.
- Napoleon Hill
(Physics is) a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.
- Elon Musk
It makes no difference where you go, there you are. And it makes no difference what you have, there’s always more to want. Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.
- Zig Ziglar
Confidence in our own independence of mind. But advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away, it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who can’t acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.
- Peter Thiel
Venture-backed companies create 11% of all private sector jobs. They generate annual revenues equivalent to an astounding 21% of GDP.
- Peter Thiel
If my life has had a theme, I suppose it has been a typical American theme in that, for most of it, I have been looking for happiness and success.
- Zig Ziglar
When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.
- John C. Maxwell
What most people want in a leader is something that’s very difficult to find: we want someone who listens…The secret, Reagan’s secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said – they’re less focused on whether or not you do what they said.
- Seth Godin
Several families interviewed for this book recommended the oldest persuasive tool known to man: bribery. Each child is given some amounts of virtual cash, 25-30 cents, for each hour of good behaviour. The same amount is subtracted from their accounts for breaking the rules. All purchases for fun – whether souvenirs, ice cream, or otherwise – come out of their own individual accounts. No balance, no goodies. This often requires more self-control on the part of the parents than the children.
- Timothy Ferriss
It’s hard to make a living when you are in school…
- Michael Dell
Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.
- John C. Maxwell
Even if we laid off 100 percent of the employees, the infrastructure costs would still kill us without a sharper sales ramp.
- Ben Horowitz
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
- Steve Jobs
When you are unbalanced you can launch things
- Rachel Faucett
Throw it all up on the wall and see what sticks.
- Timothy Ferriss
I kept saying, Sam, we’re making a good living. Why go out why expand so much more? The stores are getting farther and farther away. After the seventeenth store, though, I realized there wasn’t going to any stopping it.
- Helen Walton
Whatever your income, always live below your means.
- Thomas J Stanley
Being able to see an activity log of where a kid has been going on the Internet is a good thing.
- Bill Gates
People are going to buy cheap fertilizer so they can grow enough crops to feed themselves, which will be increasingly difficult with climate change.
- Bill Gates
Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it.
- Jack Welch
There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.
- Michael Dell
I really like reading books
- Dale Carnegie
Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.
- Seth Godin
The doctors actually told my family there was a five percent chance of me living.
- Ed Clark
Motivation needs to be a part of your own life for you to be effective in conveying it to other people.
- Zig Ziglar
One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you’ll discover that good ones slip through.
- Seth Godin
My son is now an ‘entrepreneur.’ That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job
- Ted Turner
I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t go and continue to use every advantage that I can to promote New York’s cause.
- Michael Bloomberg
Certainly, other people can pray for you, they can believe for you, they can quote the scripture to you, but you must exercise faith for yourself. If you are always depending on somebody else to keep you happy, somebody else to encourage you or to get you out of trouble, you will live in perpetual weakness and disappointment. You must make a decision that you are going to be a believer. Take charge of your life and decide, No matter what comes against me, I believe in God. I’m going to have a positive outlook for my life! Other people’s faith can indeed bolster yours. But your own faith will bring you a miracle much faster than anybody else’s. What you believe has a much greater impact on your life than what anybody else believes.
- Joel Olsteen
Focus on being productive instead of busy.
- Timothy Ferriss
I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time.
- Ben Horowitz
As he brooded over how to raise the money, he was informed by his father that he had always intended to give each of his children $1,000.00 at age twenty-one, and he now offered to advance John the money. But, John, he added lest his son expect miracles, the rate is ten. Having just retrieved a thousand dollars from Hewitt, Bill might have been looking for a high return on these idle funds. John knew his father too well to plead for a gift and accepted the 10 percent loan, which was higher than the prevailing rate. So on April 1, 1858 backed up by this borrowed money, John D. Rockefeller left Isaac Hewitt and joined the partnership of Clark and Rockefeller at 32 River Street (in Cleveland). At eighteen, he was catapulted to a partner’s rank in a commission house. It was a great thing to be my own employer, said Rockefeller. Mentally I swelled with pride – a partner in a firm with $4,000 capital! The moment was fraught with meaning for him and after his first day at work, he went back to the Cheshire Street house, fell to his knees, and implored the Lord to bless his new enterprise.
- Ron Chernow
Our business is diversified across many sectors, be it supermarkets or finance. We can invest in many areas.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional.
- John C. Maxwell
Leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity.
- Ben Horowitz
We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.
- Walt Disney
Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
- Henry Ford
One of the greatest failures to execute is the lack of follow-up. This seems so obvious, yet very few companies place as much emphasis on accountability as they do on figuring what they want to get done. Steve Reinemund, who was president of Pizza Hut when I was head of marketing there, is the best I’ve ever seen on this front. He always carried a three-by-five note card in his shirt pocket. When saw something that needed to be done, he’d pull out the card and write it down. Like everyone else who witnessed this, I quickly realized that I had better write down the same things because he’d surely be on me until they got done. Steve got results everywhere he went, whether it was as president of Pizzas Hut or Frito-Lay or chairman of PepsiCo, because he made a point of following up. People often lose track of what they’ve talked about in meetings of what they promised to do, but when you write it down, you won’t forget it.
- David Novak
It takes a decade to grow trees but a century to nurture human beings.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.
- Lei Jun
There is no accountability today… no willingness to focus on big ideas.
- Michael Bloomberg
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
- Elon Musk
If someone’s criticism is completely unfounded on data, then I don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.”
- Timothy Ferriss
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.
- Winston Churchill
Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises that the listeners do not perceive.
- Thomas Edison
In the Next Society’s corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.
- Peter Drucker
As Google CEO Larry Page put it in his 2014 TED talk: “The main thing that has caused companies to fail, in my view, is that they missed the future.
- Jack Welch
It’s not like I’m anti-China. I just think it’s ridiculous that we allow them to do what they’re doing to this country, with the manipulation of the currency, that you write about and understand, and all of the other things that they do.
- Donald Trump
There are two main drivers of asset class returns – inflation and growth.
- Ray Dalio
Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
- Og Mandino
The best teacher is very interactive.
- Bill Gates
With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period. Therefore, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates. Even more compelling: Somalia has the highest number of Pirates AND the lowest Carbon emissions of any country. Coincidence?
- Timothy Ferriss
I’d like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that’s not just e-mail with a view.
- Elon Musk
Never under estimate the other guy.
- Jack Welch
Look – this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do – ultimately, you’re at the end.
- Ben Horowitz
I see this as my humanitarian legacy. We’re prepared to pay billions.
- Sheldon Adelson
In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.
- Ben Horowitz
I don’t think there’s a… boundary between digital media and print media. Every magazine is doing an online version.
- Bill Gates
There’s 20 companies that I have investments in – some batteries, some solar-thermal, one big nuclear thing. We need hundreds and hundreds of companies like that, so that in a 20-year time frame we really are starting to change the energy infrastructure.
- Bill Gates
THE MOST CONTENTIOUS question in business is whether success comes from luck or skill.
- Peter Thiel
Sometimes God gives instructions that go against conventional wisdom, such as treating people kindly when they’re hateful. Who really wants to do that? Instructions like that my not always make sense, so that’s why I need to trust and obey the One who inspired them.
- George Foreman
At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.
- Seth Godin
