Categories:
- Rallying the Team
- Personal Success
- Thoughts on Innovation
- Overcoming Challenges
- Conquering Fear
- Dealing with Failure
- Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship
Personal Success
If I’m the smartest guy in the room, I’m in the wrong room.
If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
If you can’t stand the heat, don’t tickle the dragon.
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
At the opening of the Hoover Dam, a beaver told a rabbit: ‘Well, I didn’t build it. But it’s based on my idea.
Mediocre people are always at their best.
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Terrible is the temptation to do good!
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around.
It’s not a good strategy until it costs you something to pursue.
God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.
I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.
Never judge the characters you play… That’s the first rule of acting.
Be careful – a little success can create a whole lot of overhead.
About right now is better than exactly wrong later.
The fact that others are bad does not imply that you are good.
Make sure that the best thing to happen to your customer today is you.
There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.
It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Make no little plans.
Humility is the most underrated aspect of being an entrepreneur. Once your head gets too big, you’re cooked.
Being early and being wrong are sometimes not that different.
Good enough never is.
An entrepreneur is someone who shoots an arrow and then runs to move the target, so the arrow hits it.
Storms make trees take deeper roots.
Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest.
Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss in enthusiasm.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.
He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
It’s hard to teach a young dog old tricks.
We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.
It’s not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.
Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.
You’ll see it when you believe it.
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Even if you are on the right track, the train will run you over if you just sit there.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the entrepreneur adjusts the sails.
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
If the shoe fits, you probably didn’t buy it online.
There’s only one boss: the customer. He can fire everybody from the chairman on down simply by spending his money elsewhere.
Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves it’s amazing what they can accomplish.
If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.
If you presume, you are putting ‘P’ on your resume.
Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.
Customers don’t want 1/4 drills, they want 1/4 holes.
With Early Stage companies, it’s never one thing. It’s always one thing after another.
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.
With good people, you can do anything. With bad people, nothing helps.
Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, and abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance – or a stranger.
To do a common thing, uncommonly well, brings success.
Choice is the enemy of decision.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
Always make new mistakes.
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Creativity is great – but not in accounting.
There is great power in ignorance and naivete.
Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.
There’s no fun like work.
I believe that smart people working hard will eventually get lucky.
I don’t want the revenue; I just want the profit.
There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
If you have no idea how something is supposed to be done, I guarantee you’ll be disruptive. Let what you don’t know become your greatest asset.
One can learn to cook, but a restaurateur is born.
You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can.
Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!
Partners don’t pay each other, they help each other get paid.
Entrepreneurship exists in the tiny space between madness and genius; and, its journey requires a few cross border violations across both madness and genius to get to the final destination.
The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
I’m sure that you’re trying to challenge yourself to invent something new. That’s impossible.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme. (One leads by calm.)
We’re not trying to entertain the critics… I’ll take my chances with the public.
There is nothing so depressing as boundless optimism.
In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.
Focus on doing things that can’t hurt and might help. You’ll always be ahead.
You can’t innovate once.
Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.
Half of the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
The beginning of thought is disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.
Having money is no reason to spend it.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t have a lot of regrets.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Dad always used to say, ‘Tell me a fact, and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth, and I’ll believe. But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.’
Life is just one damned thing after another.
Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.
To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful.
I see the light when I feel the heat.
Sleep on your big decisions and then be decisive.
Is anything more un-American than an empty shelf?
By the time you get really good at this, you’ll be dead!
Too many kings can ruin an army.
When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.
Simplicity is a virtue.
The meek shall inherit the earth – but not its mineral rights.
The root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
Profit gives us resources.
A smooth sea never made for a skillful sailor.
A leader’s job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room.
No amount of advertising can force any large number of people to buy things they do not want. Advertising can only create a new market for products which fill a genuine – though often unexpressed or latent – consumer want.
If you don’t have a business, what do you do for aggravation?
Leaders define reality and provide hope.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
Try your best to make goodness attractive.
The impossible missions are the only ones that succeed.
Looking forward, people need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Advertising cannot sell a poor product. It might induce people to try it once. But it cannot build an enduring business on such a product.
Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.
Learn to sell and you will never starve.
The job of tech transfer manager is to make something happen – without getting fired.
Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
One of the hardest truths for any technologist to hear is that success or failure in business is rarely determined by the quality of the technology.
Adult humans are only a little more rational than five-year-olds.
Innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance; the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty.
The four most important words in business are ‘What do you think?’
Our mission is to delight people who appreciate quality of life.
Corporations don’t have morals.
You can never complete the work, nor must you abandon it.
Teach thy tongue to say: ‘I do not know.’
If you’re the smartest guy in the room, find another room.
I don’t want a lawyer who tells me what I can’t do. I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do!
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I would rather fail at something I love than succeed at something I hate.
By and large the citizens are proud of their great orchestra; and by and large, the citizens have never heard it.
Until we have an exit, we Angel investors are just donors.
There’s no business not like show business.
More important than what disease the person has is what person has the disease.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
Complaining is not a strategy.
Retail is detail.
Religion either leads to a deeper reflection or a greater certainty.
Accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.
Panic is not a strategy.
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Nobody cares about your product, service or solution. All they care about is the difference you can make for their organization.
Angels who won’t conduct postmortems climb the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
Entrepreneurs’ genius is the gold in the mine; angels are miners helping to extract it; VCs are claim jumpers.
Art is not optional, not decorative landscaping in front of the castle of civilization. It is no more or less important than philosophy, religion, economics, or psychology.
Too little confidence, and you’re unable to act; too much confidence, and you’re unable to hear.
When assessing ‘first mover advantage’ remember that mousetraps demonstrate the wisdom of being the second mouse.
Raising your first VC round can be like bobbing for piranhas.
Building a great company is necessary but insufficient for building a great investment.
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment.
I did not always think he was right, nor did he always think I was right. But we were each the person the other trusted.
Face-to-face contact will give you the edge over your competitors every time.
I made it because I believed I’d make it.
History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers. Customers always win.
If you take comfort in anti-dilution clauses you probably believe in lifetime guarantees.
Problems don’t age well.
People fire themselves.
I worship entrepreneurs. They do more than anyone thinks is possible – with less than anyone thinks is possible.
Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.
If you have perfect customer analytics, you will know how to find people who look like your current customer. But if you focus only on them, you will never get any new business.
After you ask a closing question, SHUT UP! The next person who speaks loses.
Mistakes … the portals of discovery.
The four most dangerous words in investing are: This time it’s different.
Your results may be worthless or misleading … but at least the data was easy to collect and you got published.
Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.
Many angels have seen more deals than they can remember. Some remember more homeruns than they have seen.
For some entrepreneurs it’s better to be never than late.
I’m only interested in designing for a certain type of woman. Specifically, one that has money.
The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.
Don’t give up on your dream, but have a backup dream.
Think like an entrepreneur. Create like an innovator. Perform like a teammate.
Your faith needs to be greater than your fear.
Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.
Proving it will be a homerun ahead of the swing is impossible! You have to try for a hit first and sometimes it turns into a homerun.
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.
Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.
Discovery is the process of simultaneously seeing things that everyone sees and thinking things that no one has thought.
People will remember stories long after they have forgotten your bullet points.
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
Creativity without action is merely imagination.
Respect everyone, fear no one.
Expedite the inevitable.
Objects have their own world. Making an object means imbuing it with its own spirit.
Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits, but the animating force for achieving them.
The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.
Never rule out that there are economic linkages you don’t understand.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
But that is what fashion is about, when you look at something, and you aren’t sure if you like it or not.
We may be wise, after all, to treat impossibility as something other than an absolute condition. Alone among all the creatures in the world, we can think about fantastical things and, at least some of the time, bring them into being.
Neatness rejects involvement.
Purpose is not a mere tagline or marketing campaign, it is a company’s fundamental reason for being.
In my next life, I will try to commit more errors.
The seven smartest words in the English language are: ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’
You can fool all the people all of the time – if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.
Give someone a book, they’ll read if for a day. Teach someone how to write a book and they’ll experience a lifetime of paralyzing self-doubt.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
It’s one thing to be wrong about the valuation. It’s another to be wrong about the business model.
Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.
There’s no decision you should ever make that would embarrass you if it became public.
For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
Can you teach me to believe?
Someone needs to do something about this.
There is no reason for any person to have a computer in their home.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
We’re imperfect people pursuing perfect ideas and there’s tremendous frustration in the gap.
There is living and dying. There is no retirement.
Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.
Trying to come up with a great idea is not a great idea. Go for quantity over quality.
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Less is more.
We’re not funding Mother Teresa. We’re funding imperial, will-to-power people who want to crush their competition.
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
You can’t let your past hold your future hostage.
It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.
The first person you lead is you.
Be a skeptic but never a cynic.
What got you here won’t get you there.
Every time I look at my yacht, I think of the 30X exits on one of my investments. I don’t have a yacht.
My advice on firing is simple. Treat that person the same way you’d want to be treated if you were in that situation. They’re still a good person, just not the right fit.
Integrity is a binary state. You either have it or you don’t
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.
When you’re through changing, you’re through.
Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others lives on.
The rational and the irrational complement each other. Individually, they are far less valuable.
The first 98% of the engineering design takes 98% of the time. The remaining 2% of the design work takes the other 98% of the time.
It is very hard to find any evidence which shows that a focus on maximizing shareholder value actually maximizes shareholder value.
Not knowing what you’re doing has nothing to do with where you’re going.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die.
Make space for the new mistakes.
We were given some great advice early on: Strategy is what you don’t do. Whenever we do anything, we ask ourselves, ‘Is this true to Warby Parker?’
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.
A business exists to create a customer.
An expert is [somebody] who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
After 35 years, there is not a shred of evidence that stock-based compensation by company officers is correlated with company performance.
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
You don’t give people what they want. You give them what they don’t yet know they want.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
More is more.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
The harder I work, the luckier I get!
Investing is about meeting people’s needs.
Why should I worry about dying? It’s not going to happen in my lifetime.
No one ever confines a secret to one person only. No one destroys all copies of a document.
Anything can happen, but it usually doesn’t.
Long as the night will be, the sun will rise without you.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
The universe is basically an animal that grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them.
If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.
The only thing worse than a big flop is a small success.
Whatever people … do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike.
Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
If all you ever did is all you’ve ever done, then all you ever get is all you’re gonna get.
The less money you need, the harder it is to run out.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
A man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
If you try to do some big thing, you don’t just need it to be big: you need it to be good. And it’s really hard to do big and good simultaneously.
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
The old definition of leadership is ‘look at me, I’m a leader.’ But the new definition should be ‘No, actually, look at you – I’m listening.’
The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.
There are two ways to be the most important guy in town. One is to have all the money. The other is to give all the money.
Failing is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.
Anyone who has ever taken a shower has had a great idea.
A joint venture is two parties in the same bed with different dreams.
All you need is faith, trust and pixie dust!
You can’t demand a withdrawal from someone you have not invested in.
You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you’ve behaved yourself into. You must behave yourself out!
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It may be a different age, but I’m on the same page. ‘Cause one thing I’ve found. I still be digging on James Brown.
Every day is a flaming toboggan ride.
If you’ve gotten to the point where you are thinking it might be time to think about replacing the founder, its past time to replace the founder.
If you don’t have a solution to match the scale of the problem, you have a hobby.
There’s a price to pay for the price you pay.
Done is better than perfect.
The best sales professionals are experts in and advocates for their buyers. They won’t represent companies they don’t believe in. They won’t get on a call without being prepared to make the most of their and their prospect’s time. They know how to leverage every technology, colleague and contact to augment their skills in order to produce optimal outcomes. They welcome coaching, exercise discipline with their time, do their homework and win for the team. They are true athletes.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Red meat is not bad for you. Now, blue-green meat? That’s bad for you!
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Even if the situation or challenge is very complex, usually the simplest solution is the one to go with.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
You cannot control cattle at a high rate of speed. They have the capacity to tire out and just stand there, and they will not move. Slow is fast – cattle don’t wear a wristwatch.
Let’s go invest tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.
Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
You don’t go broke making small profits.
The business of America, it turns out, is not business. It’s monetizing what is in our heads.
The future is like a Japanese game show. You have no idea what’s going on.
Facts tell. Stories sell.
We live to learn.
The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
If it doesn’t scare you, you’re probably not dreaming big enough.
Any data fed to AI is chosen subjectively. Computers do not see the world precisely as it is; they see it within the limits of the data given to them to represent the world. That’s a flaw AI and people have in common.
Decide what your [company] purpose is and write it down. That way, you won’t lie to yourself.
There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happen.
If I can’t make money in the $5 trillion U.S. market, it may be a little bit of wishful thinking to think that all I have to do is get a few thousand miles offshore and I’ll start showing my stuff.
If you are batting 1,000, you are playing in the Little Leagues.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.
They tried to be too clever, and that was their undoing.
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Failing to plan, is planning to fail.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Typos in your presentation tell your investors how carefully you plan to manage their money.
If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go long, go together.
I never know how much of what I say is true.
Our company is guided by three deeply held beliefs: That brands with purpose grow, companies with purpose last and people with purpose thrive.
If you never retire, you will never expire.
Good judgment comes from experience and experience … well, that comes from poor judgment.
When you need money, go ask for advice. When you need advice, go ask for money.
I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time, I am right.
Elon cares a lot about humanity, but he doesn’t really care about individual people all that much.
I am not a fan of lost causes. But a … of causes not yet won.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
The customer of my customer is my customer.
Beer isproof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
A fish doesn’t know it’s wet.
We’re all born different, that’s what we got in common.
It’s not success you want to be remembered for, but significance.
Your job is to make people care about your obsessions.
I often tell would-be entrepreneurs that you have to be a little crazy or even masochistic to choose this life. The energy, endurance, optimism and just plain thick skin required aren’t for the faint of heart.
The public wants what it can’t get.
I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.
If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits.
Done equals good.
Wealth is not about having a lot of money. It’s about having a lot of options.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Possessions are a way of turning money into problems.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
All of Wendy’s spins off one fresh word – FRESH
Anytime anybody says, ‘It’s good enough,’ it’s shitty.
I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.
If you watch entrepreneurs long enough, you observe that innovation is typically a ground game, not a Hail Mary pass.
We had a quote over the door that read, ‘Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.’
