Businessman Quotes

I don't want you to misunderstand me. You might get up and state what you believe to be Seventh-day Adventism, and I might not agree with everything you said.

A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher's stall passes as food.

I believe the Sabbath; I keep the Sabbath.

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn.

I merely consider myself a father, and one role of a father is to provide financial resources for his family.

I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.'

I don't want to make more friends. I have four kids, I have plenty of friends, and all the personal relationships I need.

I do have a peripatetic and active intellectual curiosity.

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck.

Evangelism is selling a dream.

Entrepreneurship is not for everyone.

Entitlement is the opposite of enchantment.

Create something, sell it, make it better, sell it some more and then create something that obsoletes what you used to make.

Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea.

Coming from the U.S., you tend to look at one homogeneous market with 350 million people. But in Europe, every country has its own customs and laws.

At the end of my life, is it better to say that I empowered people to make great stuff, or that I died with a net worth of $10 billion? Obviously I'm picking the former, although I would not mind both.

Ambitious failure, magnificent failure, is a very good thing.

A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy'.

A 50-year-old company can innovate as well as two guys/gals in a garage.

It doesn't matter whether the Dow is 5000 or 50,000. If you're an entrepreneur, there is no bad time to start a company.

Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

Don't worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test... Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap - but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.

What I lack in talent, I compensate with my willingness to grind it out. That's the secret of my life.

The jewelry business is a very, very tough business - tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.

If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society's heroes.

Smart, well-meaning people get it wrong when they start believing that the world owes them something and that the rules are different for them.

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.

A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.

You may not like the humor, but that is why every radio has an on-off button.