But this “spray and pray” approach usually produces an entire portfolio of flops, with no hits at all. This is because venture returns don’t follow a normal distribution overall. Rather, they follow a power law: a small handful of companies radically outperform all others. If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that can become overwhelmingly valuable, you’ll miss those rare companies in the first place.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.
- Timothy Ferriss
If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.
- Dale Carnegie
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
- Winston Churchill
Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they’re not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.
- Bill Gates
The 1990’s sure aren’t like the 1980’s.
- Donald Trump
The Habit of Saving does not mean that you shall limit your earning capacity, it means just the opposite – that you shall apply this law so that it not only conserves that which you earn, in a systematic manner, but it also places you in the way of greater opportunity and gives you the vision, the self-confidence, the imagination, the enthusiasm, the initiative and leadership actually to increase your earning capacity.
- Napoleon Hill
thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability.
- James C. Collins
Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.
- Fujio Mitarai
I’m not averse to making a lot of money. But where does that end? I hang out with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that the standard by which I should measure myself? Where does that take you if you’re in my business? I think it takes you to pretty dark, corrupt places.
- Timothy Ferriss
We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger, how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster.
- Winston Churchill
It is easy to think that the things that bother you will upset your people more. That’s not true. The opposite is true. Nobody takes the losses harder than the person most responsible. Nobody feels it more than you.
- Ben Horowitz
If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull.
- Zig Ziglar
Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.
- John C. Maxwell
Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
- Steve Martin
The dollar has lost 90% of its value in the last century.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain.
- Zig Ziglar
We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.
- Joel Olsteen
We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
- Dale Carnegie
Growth inside fuels growth outside.
- John C. Maxwell
We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.
- Howard Schultz
1. What is our mission?2. Who is our customer?3. What does the customer value?4. What are our results?5. What is our plan?
- Peter Drucker
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
- Bill Gates
You can’t just let nature run wild.
- Walt Disney
Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you’re doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they’re hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more.
- Seth Godin
The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
- Napoleon Hill
How will your new job differ from your current job?
- Ben Horowitz
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Zig Ziglar
Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
- Dale Carnegie
Clear your mind must be, if you are to find the villains behind this plot.
- Yoda
It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn – which is what life is all about.
- Oprah Winfrey
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
No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The Group will continue to press ahead steadily with an open mindset, a practical attitude, a broad vision and a unique insight, adhering to its ultimate objective of serving the nation and the wider community in the changing landscape.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Dale Carnegie
The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.
- Yoda
I did not like the way I looked in a pair of white pants.
- Sara Blakely
Marriot does not own the hotels, they market and run the real estate, they run the business
- John Kluken
For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from.
- Timothy Ferriss
I don’t care about revenues.
- Jack Ma
Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.
- Timothy Ferriss
The spirit of Southwest Airlines is exuberant, it’s caring, it’s dedicated, it’s diligent, it’s fun, it’s rewarding, it’s a joy.
- Herb Kelleher
This presents more of a challenge, given our current size and market leadership.
- John Chambers
Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.
- Napoleon Hill
If you don’t have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don’t take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It’s crazy.
- Jack Welch
I come back to the same thing: We’ve got the greatest pipeline in the company’s history in the next 12 months, and we’ve had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we’re predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year ’06.
- Steve Ballmer
Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
- Confucius
We were always trying to look for people who could help us beyond what we were doing.
- Phil Knight
If you’re less sensitive to social cues, you’re less likely to do the same things as everyone else around you.
- Peter Thiel
I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes.
- Bill Gates
The maxim, “Nothing prevails but perfection,” may be spelled PARALYSIS.
- Winston Churchill
We have to find our way back to a definite future.
- Peter Thiel
Most governments are pragmatic, most people are logical. There are pockets of extremism in Israel, in the U.S. and in the Muslim world. But we have to fight them with reason, with logic and with compassion.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
A true entrepreneur is someone who seeks to profitably solve a problem that the world has in exchange for enough monetary compensation to achieve their dreams.
- Clay Clark
I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.
- Winston Churchill
We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.
- Dale Carnegie
Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work….
- Thomas Edison
Why do you ask so much?
- Lee Shau Kee
The prevailing low mortgage rate, reasonable affordability and the low completion volumes for private-residential units in the coming few years should lend support to the local residential property market.
- Lee Shau Kee
On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
- Bill Gates
God wants to use you in spite of your weaknesses. Of God chose to use perfect people only, He’d have no one to use.
- Joel Olsteen
The companies that refused to make hard choices, or refused to admit that anything much was happening, fared badly. If they survive, it is only because their respective governments will not let them go under.
- Peter Drucker
Building solid relationships in business is about helping others succeed and moving their efforts forward. This benefits both parties. Relationships are built easily, naturally, and profitably when you focus on helping the other party…
- 2014)
We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.
- Warren Buffett
What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.”
- James C. Collins
The future is sooner and stranger than you think.
- Reid Hoffman
If you run a business, if you are responsible for a lot of people, you come to grips with the reality that you have to have discipline. You have to protect the enterprise in order to take care of the employees. So, therefore, you can’t be wasteful. You can’t squander things, or you jeopardize other people.
- Stephen Wynn
You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.
- Warren Buffett
If you have the character to hang in there when its tough, you will develop or acquire every other characteristic necessary to WIN in the game of life.
- Zig Ziglar
I’m not looking for a legacy, and you’ll never shut up the critics. I’ve been around 50 years. When you’re a catalyst for change, you make enemies – and I’m proud of the ones I’ve got.
- Rupert Murdoch
The future is already here—it is just unevenly distributed.
- William Gibson
On the Internet, companies are scale businesses, characterized by high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs. You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It’s very hard to be medium. A lot of medium-sized companies had the financing rug pulled out from under them before they could get big.
- Jeff Bezos
I am amazed that CNN can’t get its act together.
- Rupert Murdoch
I think that the first thing is you should have a strategic asset allocation mix that assumes that you don’t know what the future is going to hold.
- Ray Dalio
Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production, using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.
- Timothy Ferriss
Everything begins with a decision. Then, we have to manage that decision for the rest of your life.
- John C. Maxwell
If it’s not meeting a need, turn it into a seed. Remember, we will reap what we sow. When you do good for other people, that’s when God is going to make sure that His abundant blessings overtake you.
- Joel Olsteen
What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.
- Dave Thomas
My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
- Steve Jobs
The best investments are on main street, not Wall Street.
- Robert P. Miles
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.
- Roger Staubach
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.
- Sam Walton
Other people’s successes are good news – for them and for you. Good for you because they show you a way to go.
- Stephen Wynn
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect.
- Adam Osborne
Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
- Og Mandino
India has been and continues to be a strategic market for Cisco both in terms of business opportunities and as a base for outstanding engineering talent, … With the launch of our new campus in Bangalore today, Cisco will be well placed to continue building our presence in India as a critical part of our R&D efforts and as the domestic market for networking products and solutions continues to expand.
- John Chambers
Of course I’m an egoist. Where do you get if you aren’t?
- Winston Churchill
If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.
- Bill Gates
E – Executions, how to get things done
- Jack Welch
Japanese businesspeople and companies are lacking in individuality.
- Tadashi Yanai
Know your numbers’ is a fundamental precept of business.
- Bill Gates
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
Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and U.S. government bonds into real assets.
- George Soros
Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished.
- Og Mandino
To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.
- Ben Horowitz
No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.
- Andrew Carnegie
Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining – it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn’t solve any problems.
- Zig Ziglar
SPAM is taking e-mail, which is a wonderful tool, and exploiting the idea that it’s very inexpensive to send mail.
- Bill Gates