“In a peculiar way, failure can sometimes be simpler to grapple with. You can simply resist it, dismiss it with a defiant 'to hell with this, to hell with them', and return to square one. Conversely, success can be considerably more subtle and insidious.”
— Andrew McCarthy
Actor known for 1980s films like "St. Elmo's Fire

The quote archive

Innovation

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

Innovative companies are not afraid of failure – they're willing to take risks, fail forward, learn from missteps, pivot, and keep going.

— Reggie Fils-Aimé

Former President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era

I lived the change. My company was a way of, as they say, 'scratching my own itch.' I wanted to be able to go on working myself, and I realised that a lot of other women would have had comparable aims and desires.

— Dame Stephanie Shirley

Pioneering Software Engineer & Founder of Freelance Programmers Ltd

I define disruption as being where the incumbent players and incumbents somehow deny what their customers are saying or want differently. A disruptor comes in, sees a problem more clearly, and in some cases has more freedom to attack the problem.

— Mitch Lowe

Co-Founder of Netflix & Former Redbox CEO

We believe innovation should be a continuous activity. It should be a capability that you are developing and attending to regularly. It requires a kind of fodder of new problems all the time in order to be refining and developing.

— Jeremy Utley

Co-Author of "Ideaflow" & Design Thinking Expert at Stanford

The single best way to have a great idea is to produce lots of ideas. The number of new ideas your organization can produce is a metric for its ability to generate novel solutions to any given problem. Your ideaflow is the most crucial business metric that you've never considered.

— Jeremy Utley

Co-Author of "Ideaflow" & Design Thinking Expert at Stanford

Jack said, 'Well, what do you know about PayPal?' – his response, 'I don't know anything about PayPal'. Jack then said, 'Okay, you're hired, we want you to be the CEO of Ali Pay!'

— Brian A. Wong

The only real competitive advantage that's durable is cost and innovation – as long as innovation happens along the trajectory that takes into account stakeholders, not just shareholders.

— Mike Evans

NFL Wide Receiver for Tampa Bay Buccaneers & Super Bowl Champion

Entrepreneurial businesses innovate, change, evolve and meet customer needs… it's about creating things that people value and love.

— Christopher Payne

Nobody will fund innovation in perpetuity – you need to make money; you need to deliver value to your customers. When people ask me whether we want growth or profit, I say yes! Both!

— Christopher Payne

Could there be room for innovative methods that could potentially benefit those in the same position as Josephine Hart and countless others?

— Maurice Saatchi

Co-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency

If one aspires to make a positive impact on the world, shouldn't we strive for innovative solutions, perhaps even for a disease as formidable as cancer?

— Maurice Saatchi

Co-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency

There will be no cure for cancer until real doctors with real patients in real hospitals can attempt an innovation.

— Maurice Saatchi

Co-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency

Consider the adoption rates of various technologies: for telephone and electricity, it took approximately 15 years to jump from a 50% to 75% market share. With the advent of the internet and computers, that span dropped to 10 years. Television achieved this in only 5 years. But smartphones? They shattered all records with a mere 3-year period.

— Carl D. Marci

The objective was to engage with endeavors so unique that they defied categorization, the pioneering ideas born on the fringes, among the mavericks.

— Kevin Kelly

Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine & Technology Thinker

We quickly adopt technologies we see potential in and dismiss those that don't seem promising. Over the last five years, we have heavily invested in Artificial Intelligence, which has brought immense benefits to us and our clients.

— Ajaz Ahmed

We view ourselves as an innovation agency, one that marries the spheres of art and technology. We also aim to foster an environment that magnetises highly skilled individuals who strive to produce groundbreaking and influential work.

— Ajaz Ahmed