Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If I ever took a business public, I wouldn't want to take the shares off the table. I don't want people thinking I'm doing it just to make money and then going to run for the hills. I think that's a very important distinction.
I had been in the technology business for so long, I had seen the PC-bubble come and burst, I had seen the local area and wide area networking-bubble come and burst, it was no shock that the internet-bubble was going to burst.
At Wal-Mart, it goes back to Sam Walton and the foundation and business model that we simply operate for less, or everyday low cost. We're known for operating in a very efficient way and then giving those savings to customers.
I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work.
I sold Blockbuster because I saw what was coming: the satellite dish, technology that would make the business obsolete in a few years. Why would people go to a store for a video and then have to return it when they had a dish?
If people are teaching economics, they need to teach all the different disciplines, all the different schools in economics. They can't just teach one because then the person isn't equipped to deal with the economics profession.
All of our competitors around the world, every country is investing more in infrastructure as a percentage of their GDP than we are. And down the road our children and grandchildren will have to compete with that more and more.
Worrying about the past or the future isn't productive. When you start chastising yourself for past mistakes, or seeing disaster around every corner, stop and take a breath and ask yourself what you can do right now to succeed.
Our industry expertise (at KKR) enables the firm not only to make better investment choices but also to win the confidence of senior management and sellers, which has enabled us to purchase many companies on an exclusive basis.
Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility... The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.
There is no limit to the potential of brethren working together in complete brotherhood and selflessness toward spiritual goals. The power of God working through such channels will bring unimaginable blessings to all concerned.
Some people erroneously believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members are not Christian. We have difficulty understanding why anyone could accept and promote an idea that is so far from the truth.
There would not be enough talent that's educated, developed and ready to take on the next leadership challenge, and it would cap our growth. Now we've put programs in place not to have that happen, but that could be a weakness.
I get 100 e-mails a day from Americans who say, 'What you're doing is cool - can we work for you?' From Germans, I also get 100 e-mails a day, saying, 'You fat pig!' or 'You're a liar and a criminal!' I'm trying to change this.
The best advice I ever got came from my mother, Estee Lauder: She believed that if you had something good to say, you should put it in writing. But if you had something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face.
What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? It takes willingness to learn, to be able to focus, to absorb information, and to always realize that business is a 24/7 job where someone is always out there to kick your ass.
If you run a country and want to put it on the global map you don't have so many choices. You can get the Olympics, the World Cup or a Formula One race. And the first two are only every four years - and you have them only once.
The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.
There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one.
I have always been an advocate and was, in my last job at M&S, a supporter of the Al Gore dictum that a sustainable business can be a profitable business. We were the first sizeable company in the UK to prove that was the case.
I ask people what they do in sales, how much money they made last year, what their cost of sales is, and they don't even know. If you don't know your numbers, you're going out of business. I don't care how good your product is.
The bulk of the utility industry today believes that coal and nuclear are the only solutions we have. Nuclear is greener but has the other issues. Coal, they think, can be transformed into the so-called clean coal technologies.
Most small business owners are not particularly sophisticated business people. That's not a criticism; they're passionate about cutting hair or cooking food, and that's why they got in the business, not because they have an MBA.
I don't like horror, which is ridiculous because I've been in three horror movies, but when I see those things, I see camera tricks and fake blood and actors screaming and I don't know understand why other actors don't see that.
We have some worse scenarios for which we need to prepare as companies. For the moment, we're planning for the worst, and the worst is now, and the car market is down more than 15 percent in France. There is so much uncertainty.
Personally, I like to juice up several different kinds of fruit and vegetables - which may include various combinations of bananas, red bell peppers, apples, carrots, celery, broccoli, spinach, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.
The one thing you realize if you're going to be successful - no matter where you grew up, no matter what your educational level is - A. You can succeed, but B. The only way you're going to succeed is by outworking everyone else.
I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see And pursuing that vision.
Many companies today are reducing hours of full-time people to get under the minimum so they don't have to pay health care costs. I just shake my head because that's not going to build long-term value and trust with your people.
Anybody involved in sports in Missouri knows it's a great sports state. It is a great sports state, particularly in basketball and baseball. Particularly. Not to demean football, but it's a baseball state and a basketball state.
With the initial focus groups and the initial look-sees, the Rams are a very popular team in Southern California. And so one of the reasons that it was attractive to us to work against them is because they have that good flavor.
I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
Stay the course and keep building an integrated Apple ecosystem of iPhone + iPod + iMac + iTunes + App Store + Apple TV. No one has yet demonstrated they understand how to create an 'experience-based ecosystem' as well as Apple.
I used to drive around looking at the big houses, wondering how they got there. I used to love biographies about successful business people, wondering how they got there. You start to realize that if they can do it, I can do it.
I'd met Simon [Segars] for the first time in London. He struck me as a quiet, natural-born engineer and an orthodox successor [to East]. He has a home in Silicon Valley, and he said it's just a few minutes' drive away from mine.
Wal-Mart, we've been known for many years - back to the days of when Sam Walton started the company - we've been known for basics. The basic need of families and people across America. Wal-Mart was known as the place for basics.
The manufacturers of mechanical typewriters believed that they had developed sufficiently when they introduced electric typewriters. Then came the PC, and the deeply traditional makers of typewriters disappeared from the market.
A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you're prepared, it can't hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.
The Rule of 72 is useful in determining how fast money will grow. Take the annual return from any investment, expressed as a percentage, and divide it into 72. The result is the number of years it will take to double your money.
By and large, life will give you what you deserve and it doesn't give a damn what you like. So it is up to you to take full responsibility to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it, and then to do those things.
Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it does when getting fit). When you excel at it, you will find your ability to get what you want thrilling.
We've been thinking very carefully about how can we possibly communicate the real value and the attraction of Nintendo 3DS. The conclusion was that there is no other way than to let as many people as possible to actually see it.
People sometimes ask me what I did when I was hired at HAL. The answer is that I was a programmer. And an engineer. And a designer. And I marketed our games. I also ordered food. And I helped clean up. And, it was all great fun.
On the first movie we got good reviews, but we were still dealing with genre stuff. It's going away. Judge the movie - is it a good one or a bad one? We know we made a great movie and it's being judged for just being a good film.
Sammy Baugh embodied all we aspire to at the Washington Redskins. He was a competitor in everything he did and a winner. He was one of the greatest to ever play the game of football, and one of the greatest the Redskins ever had.
Caterpillar exported $20 billion of goods in 2011, all by American hands and American workers, to all over the world. In order to do that, we have to create jobs in all those countries that we export to, to be able to sell there.
If you look at us as a company, what's the one thing that's consistent? It has to be the biggest, the best, the greatest. My father, over the years, has bought some of the best mansions of the world. It's just something he loves.
Anyone who has been in business can tell war stories about the bumps in the road. But if they've outlasted the competition, ask for their stories about survival. They've figured out how to turn disappointments into opportunities.
When you have a dream that you can't let go of, trust your instincts and pursue it. But remember: Real dreams take work, They take patience, and sometimes they require you to dig down very deep. Be sure you're willing to do that.
You don't need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve.