Quotes by Aaron Levie - Page 2

Innovation is hard because solving problems people didn't know they had & building something no one needs look identical at first.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Innovation
Needs
People
Copy Quote
Focus too much on the near-term and you won't get tomorrow's customers, focus too much on the long-term and you won't get today's.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Focus
Long
Today
Copy Quote
Modularize, don't customize. Build a platform as opposed to building all of the custom technology and custom vertical experiences.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Building
Platforms
Copy Quote
Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won't tackle problems that others once failed at.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Favors
Innovation
Stubborn
Copy Quote
The most customer-centric organizations can answer any question by deciding what's best for the customer, without ever having to ask.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Answers
Asks
Organization
Copy Quote
Sometimes things are the way they are and can't be changed, other times it's because no one ever tried. Your job is to find the latter.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Jobs
Sometimes
Way
Copy Quote
If you're waiting for encouragement from others, you're doing it wrong. By the time people think an idea is good, it's probably too late.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Encouragement
Ideas
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
Any time where the delta b/w what is possible and how things work today is at its widest, that's an opportunity to go build new technology.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Opportunity
Technology
Today
Copy Quote
Too little process and you can't get good work done. Too much process and you can't get any work done. Most companies never find the middle.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Done
Littles
Too Much
Copy Quote
You'll learn more in a day talking to customers than a week of brainstorming, a month of watching competitors, or a year of market research.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Research
Talking
Years
Copy Quote
Listen to your customers, but don't always build exactly what they're telling you. This is a really key distinction around building enterprise software.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Building
Distinction
Keys
Copy Quote
My dad is a chemical engineer, and my mom was a teacher. They were pretty serious about education, but I always thought about things a little bit differently.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Dad
Mom
Teacher
Chemical
Engineer
Copy Quote
You intentionally start small, because you will not be able to compete with an incumbent... because the incumbent is always going to go for the full solution.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Able
Building
Incumbents
Copy Quote
I'm certainly not into money and prestige. For me there is simply nothing more exciting than people involved in the creation of great products. That is what drives me.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Creation
Involved
People
Prestige
Products
Money Great Me
Certainly
Simply
Drives
Copy Quote
I'm obsessed with speed. I'm always asking myself, 'Why can't we do things faster? Why can't it happen more efficiently? Why is this requiring three meetings instead of one?'
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Asking
Brilliant
Three
Copy Quote
I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that's cliche, I don't know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Able
Achieve
Managers
Always Enough Your
Enough Always Your
Set
High
Extremely
People Always Your
Sights
While
Copy Quote
I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that’s cliche, I don’t know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
People
Sight
Thinking
Copy Quote
The dynamic with social is you tend not to have products with 30% market share. It's all or nothing. Email works because we have open standards that let you communicate across any email client.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Communicate
Products
Share
Standards
Across
Client
Dynamic
Market
Market Share
Tend
Copy Quote
What happens to the Microsofts, Oracles and IBMs of the world is that when they get big enough, they don't think they need to bring that same level of focus and energy to the end-user experience.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Energy
Focus
Oracles
Thinking
Big Enough
Bring
Same Level
Copy Quote
All we're really doing is repeating technologies that were tried 10, 20, 30 years ago... it's just that it was too expensive, too unusable, and we didn't have the enabling technologies to make it possible.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Enabling
Years
Copy Quote
You can look at the cost structure of an incumbent company and discover: where are they not going to be able to drop their prices... because that business model is fundamental to the existence of the company.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Cost
Fundamentals
Looks
Copy Quote
Always look for these changing technology factors- any market that has a significant change in the underlying raw materials ...or enabling factors, is an environment that is about to change in a very significant way.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Raw Materials
Significant Change
Copy Quote
There's a lot of pride that business owners have. It's actually really critical that pride and ownership extends to everyone in the organization. I think of everyone is in the same boat in driving the company forward.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Boat
Business Owners
Critical
Driving
Organization
Owners
Pride
Thinking
Copy Quote
I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it's important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It's best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Force
Important
Morale
People
Thinking
Genuinely
Incredibly
Organically
Super
Copy Quote
If you think about the market that we're in, and more broadly just the enterprise software market, the kind of transition that's happening right now from legacy systems to the cloud is literally, by definition, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Enterprise
Legacy
Software
Cloud
Definition
Happening
Literally
Market
Systems
Copy Quote
I tend to not discriminate when it comes to people I can learn from. Basically, if someone has built a meaningful business in software, technology or media, faced disruption and adversity, and overcame underdog status, I want to know how they did it.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Adversity
Disruption
Meaningful
Software
Underdog
Business Technology People
Discriminate
Overcame
Status
Tend
Copy Quote
My co-founder Dylan Smith and I left our junior year of college to move to the Bay Area. To the horror of our friends' parents, we actually had two other friends drop out of college to work on the product. The four of us were just working non-stop growing Box.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Bay Area
College
Dylan
Horror
Junior Year
Moving
Non Stop
Two
Area
Box
Bay
Drop
Junior
Product
Smith
Copy Quote
They can bring the technology in, then you can sell to the enterprise when they want to have better control, better security... you still have the same biz model as a traditional enterprise sw company, but the way to get into the company is through the end user.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Want
Way
Copy Quote
Steve Jobs is the most epic entrepreneur of all time. He served as a guiding light for any emerging businessperson who wanted to learn how things should get done. He'll be looked at as one of the best business leaders of all time, and certainly one of the best tech entrepreneurs.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Jobs
Business Leaders
Emerging
Entrepreneur
Epic
Light
Time Best Business
Businessperson
Certainly
Best Time Business
Entrepreneurs
Guiding
Leaders
Looked
Tech
Served
Steve
Copy Quote
All of a sudden, if you think about the entire ecosystem of connected devices that can pull down information, access content and allow me to share and work and communicate, the vast majority now are not Windows computers. They are iPhones. They are iPads. They are Android devices.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Computers
Access
Communicate
Connected
Devices
Ecosystems
Information
Ipads
Iphone
Majority
Share
Thinking
Work Me Information
Now
Allow
Android
Content
Vast
Down
Ecosystem
Entire
Pull
Sudden
Vast Majority
Windows
Copy Quote
My downtime tends to resemble my uptime. Weekends are workdays, but toned down. Over the whole weekend, I may have five meetings, as opposed to six on a weekday. I used to play piano for 30 minutes at night, but I had to pull that out of my schedule. I don't have time for nonwork stuff.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Downtime
Five
Meetings
Minutes
Night
Play
Six
Stuff
Weekend
Opposed
Pull
Resemble
Schedule
Tends
Toned
Weekends
Copy Quote
It's not accidental that products get worse over time; it's because companies stop paying attention to them. They stop caring as much about maintaining the same quality they did when they were just trying to fight for survival and no one would pay attention unless they had the best technology.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Quality
Technology
Attention
Caring
Maintaining
Pay
Pay Attention
Products
Survival
Time Best Technology
Accidental
Companies
Fight
Paying
Unless
Worse
Copy Quote
My mom is proud of me. But she might not be too happy about the hours I keep or how little I eat. I wake up so late that it would be inappropriate to have breakfast. At most, I will have a snack in the day and dinner. I realize that it's not the healthiest way to live, but it's all I really have time for.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Mom
Breakfast
Dinner
Hours
Inappropriate
Late
Proud
Snacks
Wake Up
Would Be
Time Mom Me
Realize
Snack
Wake
Copy Quote
If you're in your early 20s and you're hanging out with a bunch of other people in their early 20s, nobody has a sense of the kinds of problems that real 'workers' run into every day. They're running into a completely different set of problems like 'what's the party going on right now that I should be going to?
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Running
Party
Real
Copy Quote
If you're in your early 20s and you're hanging out with a bunch of other people in their early 20s, nobody has a sense of the kinds of problems that real 'workers' run into every day. They're running into a completely different set of problems like 'What's the party going on right now that I should be going to?'
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Bunch
Early 20s
Workers
Your Day People
Copy Quote
I interned at Miramax and subsequently at Paramount because I was really curious about the future of entertainment - how were we going to get films online? While the inspiration for Box didn't come from that experience directly, it was very obvious that bigger businesses had a lot of slow processes and cumbersome technology.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Bigger
Curious
Entertainment
Inspiration
Obvious
Online
Paramount
Box
Businesses
Directly
Miramax
Processes
Slow
Subsequently
Copy Quote
The business models in enterprise have changed pretty dramatically. A huge problem with enterprise software traditionally has been usually you sell to the customer and then they adopt the technology. The great thing about 'freemium' and the new way enterprise software is being sold is you get to try it first and then buy it.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Technology
Changed
Educational
Enterprise
Huge
Models
Software
Trying
Adopt
Buy
Customer
Dramatically
Sell
Great Thing
New Way
Copy Quote
I think because of the iPhone and the fact that we now have a ubiquitous internet, our creativity in the startup space is 10 times different. Every single industry, every single market, is going to be technology-driven in some way. There's an infinite opportunity for startups because now you can go and solve problems that previously looked like they had nothing to do with technology.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Opportunity
Technology
Creativity
Copy Quote
I believe there's plenty of market for each; we're talking about an ecosystem that is going to support billions of devices, so a competitive landscape is good for consumers, developers, and the platforms alike. Apple brings a smooth elegance to its devices and platform, with the best marketplace experience to boot. Google brings a higher volume of devices as well as a more diverse ecosystem to interact with. The real story here is that Microsoft is nowhere to be seen, ending a two-decade monopoly and creating biggest opportunity for software startups probably ever.
Aaron Levie / Entrepreneur
Opportunity
Believe
Real
Copy Quote

Top Authors

Mother Teresa
Saint
Friday, Aug 26, 1910
Friday, Sep 05, 1997
Pope Francis
Thursday, Dec 17, 1936
Kim Kardashian
Television Personality
Tuesday, Oct 21, 1980
W. Edwards Deming
Statistician
Sunday, Oct 14, 1900
Monday, Dec 20, 1993
Vince Lombardi
Football Player
Wednesday, Jun 11, 1913
Thursday, Sep 03, 1970
Zig Ziglar
Author
Saturday, Nov 06, 1926
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2012
John Keats
Poet
Saturday, Oct 31, 1795
Friday, Feb 23, 1821
Ronald Reagan
40Th US President
Monday, Feb 06, 1911
Saturday, Jun 05, 2004
Heraclitus
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Yogi Berra
Baseball Manager
Tuesday, May 12, 1925
Tuesday, Sep 22, 2015
Deepak Chopra
Author
Wednesday, Oct 22, 1947
Will Rogers
Actor
Tuesday, Nov 04, 1879
Thursday, Aug 15, 1935
Aldous Huxley
Writer
Thursday, Jul 26, 1894
Friday, Nov 22, 1963
Lucy Larcom
Poet
Friday, Mar 05, 1824
Monday, Apr 17, 1893

View All Authors

Aaron Levie Quotes - Page 2

App & Tools

Related Entrepreneur Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Entrepreneur Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page