“History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, the second as a farce. I think one of the things I have learned with history is that it's important to study it, but it will rarely give you the right answer. Quite often because there is no right answer, and what you're really looking for is to understand how you got here.”— Sir Laurie Bristow
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Our minds are not structured for the pace of rapid change that we're seeing and, increasingly, will experience. It's therefore natural that our reaction is fear and a foot on the brake, but the reality is that exponential change doesn't have a dial that you can slow down.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
Today? we're at the precipice of taking a fundamental vacation from survival where instead of worrying about tomorrow, we can decide how to spend our time. When food, energy, healthcare and education are literally free to everyone, everywhere, what will humanity do with time? What an extraordinary opportunity?
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
We're heading to a world where all our energy is derived from the sun and from renewables, a world where we will have a squanderable abundance of energy. There's 6,000 times more energy hitting the surface of the Earth than we consume as a species.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
One way that we deal with the accelerating rate of change is by sort of riding on top of that tsunami of change rather than being crushed by it.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
We're living in a world of increasing, exponentially growing computational power. Technology is always on, always available, and we're now moving into the quantum computing era – these exponential technologies are enabling artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, synthetic biology, augmented reality, blockchain and allowing these technologies to converge, creating new business models.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
Speed and pace are important – the circumstances that brought people to the table can change over time, nothing is forever, nothing is static.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
I don't think about legacy, that's just not me. I think about what we're doing new every single day, across all the different areas we're involved in.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
I believe that you have to keep asking questions, and that there's no such thing as a negative question. It's all learning.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
Everyone in a high functioning organisation is simultaneously a teacher and a student. They will have been taught by others, and will be teaching others.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
I've always felt negotiation is pretty-easy. You have to look at any situation from the perspective of all sides, and find a zone of fairness in between.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
Excellence is almost a tactile feeling – and it starts with a vision… sometimes a vision that shows you a path that's so good that it cannot not succeed.
— Stephen SchwarzmanCo-Founder & CEO of Blackstone, Global Investment Powerhouse
Everyone says, 'oh it's fine to make mistakes, it's fine to do things wrong'. But actually? making that true is really difficult.
— Sheryl SandbergCOO of Facebook & Author of "Lean In
Adversity is happening all around us at the individual level, it's happening at a company level, it's happening at industry levels; and we can either face it and learn from it or we can pretend it's not happening. And I think that is the key.
— Sheryl SandbergCOO of Facebook & Author of "Lean In
Resilience is the responsibility and opportunity of the community.
— Sheryl SandbergCOO of Facebook & Author of "Lean In
We have to stop pretending that there's no adversity, or that we can't do anything about the adversity we face. We need to fix the culture of silence and ignorance surrounding bias and adversity.
— Sheryl SandbergCOO of Facebook & Author of "Lean In
In order to fix bias you have to admit to them, you have to admit they exist and bring them out of the shadows. Then you can call them out.
— Sheryl SandbergCOO of Facebook & Author of "Lean In