A lot of philanthropy is making bets, seeing if they work, staying with them…it is more like being an investor in other people's good entrepreneurial ideas.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
“Nobody ever has control of all of the levers, and nobody ever has complete information. But also, there's always the day after. When dealing with really difficult issues it's very easy to get stuck in the moment and to lose sight of where we do want to be five or ten years from now.”— Sir Laurie Bristow
The quote archive
Wisdom in fragments
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
One you have to get a unique insight. It starts there. Two, you need to be prepared to devote a lot of energy and commitment.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
Small companies will get an idea and try to scale up. Big companies have to decide when to extend, when to extend and scale, and when to do something new. They need to build capabilities in terms of insight and execution to do the new thing.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
The most important thing a leader has to have is an idea on where they want to go and the ability to bring people with them. Dangerous leaders can be charismatic and effective at mobilizing people, but take them down a wrong path.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
Many forms of entrepreneurship don't lead to wealth, and but they are no less entrepreneurial.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
Never was wealth the driver for me. – it was always hey, there's a cool idea here, let's make something of it. It was nice to be well rewarded, but the interesting part was working the problem, thinking about new things and how to bring them forward from being ideas to being products or new ways of doing things.
— Steve BallmerFormer CEO of Microsoft & Owner of Los Angeles Clippers
If people tell me, 'you're the mean shark', I say 'no I'm not, I'm the nicest shark – I tell the truth. And if you can't get past me on shark tank, wait until you get in the real world – you'll get shredded.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
I've made the most money with people who put their nose to the grindstone and don't talk about valuation. They talk about running business and growing it.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
The sacrifice is perhaps a decade- and it's a total sacrifice- you may not see your kids, you may miss an entire cycle of your lives, but you're doing it to provide for them in the future in a way you never could if you were an employee.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
Entrepreneurs that do it for greed of money fail. Entrepreneurship isn't about greed, it has nothing to do with that; what matters is personal freedom.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
What motivates great entrepreneurs is fear of failure; and here's the thing – most entrepreneurs fail several times before they achieve success, and the more you fail, the more fear you have.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
It taught me the difference between the two types of people in the world. Those that own the store, and those that scrape shit off the floor. You have to decide which one you want to be.
— Kevin O’LearyShark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate
This kind of play improved all of my cognitive skills and really showed me how journeys that began with curiosity could turn into bigger dreams.
— Brian GrazerProducer of Academy Award-winning films and television shows
I was the kid that was wondering what was faster, a car or a bee… what if garbage cans were gold… I'd posit these what-if questions and throw them to people around me.
— Brian GrazerProducer of Academy Award-winning films and television shows
I didn't know that having face to face contact with people and being curious would be my medication…. And would save me. I didn't know curiosity was going to become a superpower in my life.
— Brian GrazerProducer of Academy Award-winning films and television shows
Just think; our bodies are not just one single individual…. We're collections of 30-40 trillion cells that work collaboratively to create you or me. Life began 4 billion years ago on this planet as very simple prokaryotic life forms evolved into more complex individual eukaryotic life forms, multicellular life and then eventually tissues and organs.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University