How do you make your company a good place to work in general? That’s a really, really, really large and complex set of skills. A lot of it is on-the-job training, combined with excellent mentorship.
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
A company has a monopoly on its own brand by definition, so creating a strong brand is a powerful way to claim a monopoly.
- Peter Thiel
Great design = getting people to do what you want.
- Seth Godin
Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.
- Thomas Edison
To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.
- John C. Maxwell
The more you talk about negative things in your life, the more you call them in. Speak victory not defeat.
- Joel Olsteen
The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.
- Dale Carnegie
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
Give your subconscious a chance to work by turning your brain off from time to time. Don’t focus on work or solving problems constantly.
- Harvey Mackay
It encourages you to focus on your work and the generosity that comes from interacting with (and helping) your community.
- Seth Godin
You have to think anyway, so why not think big?
- Donald Trump
Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.
- Napoleon Hill
They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
- Winston Churchill
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.
- Ben Horowitz
In 2008, people who invested in hedge funds needed capital badly, but many of the funds would not return their money. However, I gave money back to any investor who requested it. It was the bottom of the market and a pretty tough time.
- Carl Icahn
Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth…. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
- Viktor E. Frankl
You’re got to worry about what’s coming up to stay ahead of the curve…
- Phil Knight
They told you to get your résumé in order, to punch your ticket, to fit in, and to follow instructions. They told you to swallow your pride, not to follow your dream. They promised trinkets and prizes and possibly riches if you would just suck it up and be part of the system, if you would merely do what you were told and conform. They sold you debt and self-storage and reality TV shows. They sold your daughters and sons, too.All in exchange for what would happen later, when it was your turn. It’s your turn.
- Seth Godin
When you develop yourself to the point where your belief in yourself is so strong that you know that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, your future will be unlimited.
- Brian Tracy
When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to feel that’s right,” or that’s stupid,” that’s abnormal,” that’s unreasonable,” that’s incorrect,” that’s not nice.” Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person.
- Dale Carnegie
The sudden attacks on the United States of America brought about adverse effects on the global economy in the short term. However, Mainland China has until now been able to maintain its economic growth on a steady course.
- Lee Shau Kee
The culture was strong enough to transcend the original company.
- Peter Thiel
Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl – no superior alternative has yet been found.
- Winston Churchill
Accessible design is good design.
- Steve Ballmer
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
My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.
- Ben Horowitz
Create a vision and personalize it. People need to say, I understand it, I’m excited about it, and I can make it happen.
- David Novak
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
- Brian Tracy
Love to learn—hate to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
- Winston Churchill
One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything. They are fearful of losing, failing, or getting hurt and just want to do the things they believe will keep them safe.
- Zig Ziglar
Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.
- Steve Ballmer
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I am excited for the opportunity to pursue new interests, including my work with a few public company boards, several universities in the U.S. and the UK and ophthalmic charities whose goals are to improve eye health in emerging markets.
- David Pyott
George W. Bush stated, I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation. That’s when I knew Bush was headed for trouble. With all due respect for the office, I completely disagree with him. In my view, it’s the leader’s responsibility to explain his or her actions every step of the way. And the higher up you are, the more important it is.
- David Novak
In the middle of that process four power plants just tripped off all at once in unison.
- Ed Clark
Courage is on display every day, and only the courageous wring the most out of life.
- Zig Ziglar
The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers
- Sam Walton
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
Although Hong Kong continued to be affected by the slowdown of the global economy in the past financial year, most of the retail shopping properties owned by the Group are located in new towns where continual growth of residents are maintained and consumer spending power are segregated, thereby providing a good support to stabilise rental of the retail shopping properties located in such new towns.
- Lee Shau Kee
You need to be better not bitter.
- Nate Waters
As we said, even the best venture investors have a portfolio, but investors who understand the power law make as few investments as possible.
- Peter Thiel
I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was… an arctic wilderness.
- Steve Martin
I have many children, as you seek you may find that this the last one till he must die before he must reach the becoming of mankind. Many men have failed but i have surpassed their expectation of being a Jedi master.
- Yoda
We don’t have a monopoly. We have market share. There’s a difference.
- Steve Ballmer
If you let pride stop you, you will hate life.
- Timothy Ferriss
Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I’d put myself in the latter category. But I’d never call myself a normal designer of anything.
- Steve Wozniak
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/raydalio477440.html#y1TGJiE5HFdDtpgG.99
- Ray Dalio
It’s hard for me to imagine how a $50 million marketing campaign is ever appropriate for any business to launch an ideavirus. If you need to interrupt that many people, you’re doing something wrong.
- Seth Godin
Look, the whole world wants to modernize, and when you look to what they mean by modernizing, they mean Americanize. Would a modern Greek prefer to live in Orange County than Piraeus? Yes. Absolutely.
- Rupert Murdoch
I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.
- Herb Kelleher
Everybody has equal opportunity, and I think that is true for everything.
- Mukesh Ambani
Tip #17 – Perceived value is what sells. Real value is what repeats.
- Jack Nadel
Make your desires clear and reduce them to writing.
- Napoleon Hill
It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.
- Dale Carnegie
Konosuke Matsushita was a visionary entrepreneur. He started working very young as a teenager, and he eventually created Panasonic to become a truly global company.
- Tadashi Yanai
Comedy may be big business but it isn’t pretty.
- Steve Martin
It is my dream to have a controlling stake of Arsenal.
- Alisher Usmanov
With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice.
- Oprah Winfrey
Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves.
- Zig Ziglar
Security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit; your machine can be taken over totally.
- Bill Gates
(In reference to one of his first advertising sales mentors Howard Davis)… He was 6 foot 4 with silver hair…the quintessential advertising guy. He had a glass topped desk in his office because, as he put it, he like to be able to look down and see his Guccis while he worked. Howard taught me to get things done. He was very smart but he was also an animal. He exuded power and he could be very intimidating, and he knew how to use his power to get results while still managing to be a good guy. Howard’s personal style was very different from my own, but what he did teach me was how to create a sense of urgency, how to motivate performance by getting everyone’s heart pounding.
- David Novak
Even working remotely should be avoided, because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day.
- Peter Thiel
Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature, Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.
- Walt Disney
There’s this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true.
- Howard Schultz
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
- Anonymous
Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.
- Thomas Edison
The people who are the best in the world specialize at getting really good at the questions they don’t know.
- Seth Godin
The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.
- Sam Walton
Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.
- Richard Branson
By swallowing evil word unsaid noone has ever yet harmed his stomach.
- Winston Churchill
If you think something hard is impossible, you’ll never even start trying to achieve it. Belief in secrets is an effective truth.
- Peter Thiel
Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.
- Terry Fischer
Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That’s the fundamental thing.
- Ben Horowitz
Three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants.
- Thomas J Stanley
I was raised with ‘Laurel and Hardy’ and ‘I Love Lucy’ and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it’s the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you’re performing in your bedroom for yourself.
- Steve Martin
Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial.
- Timothy Ferriss
Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who’s going to build.
- Larry Ellison
When launching something new, you have to go for it—“playing not to lose” can never be an option.
- Jack Welch
Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
- Vida D. Scudder
I believe that one of life’s greatest risks is never daring to risk.
- Oprah Winfrey
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
- Winston Churchill
Christopher Colombus’ big mistake was that he was looking for a trade route to China, and accidentally bumped into America, the richest, most powerful country in the world.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Why would I spend $5 billion for something in order to wreck it?
- Rupert Murdoch
It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.
- Timothy Ferriss
Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.
- Bill Gates
Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.
- Winston Churchill
Do not listen to those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious.
- Og Mandino
A student of life considers the world a classroom.
- Harvey Mackay
People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain their lack of achievement: 1) If I had the money… 2) If I could get the job… 3) If I had been given a chance… 4) If I were younger… 5) If I were older… 6) If I only had a better education… 7) If I could just save some money… 8) If I lived in a big city… 9) If I were not so fat… 10) If my talents were better known… 11) If I didn’t have a past… 12) If I had my own business… 13) If I had the courage…
- Napoleon Hill
You have to get all agreements in writing.
- Jack Nadel
I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.
- Elon Musk
HE RICH DON’T WORK FOR MONEY The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Capitalism works.
- Michael Bloomberg
Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.
- Steven Spielberg
Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.
- Ben Horowitz
I don’t think it’s a big deal to show opera glasses to someone searching for binoculars that you somehow infer is a woman. But you don’t want to pop up ads for H.I.V. drugs on someone’s page, because you inferred they have H.I.V., when their boss is standing there looking at their computer
- Sergey Brin
Laughter is America’s most important export.
- Walt Disney
If my mother hadn’t been the most patient person in the world, I might never have gone to school.
- Ben Horowitz
