“Scaling up is incredibly challenging; it's definitely been the hardest part of my own entrepreneurship journey. You might be familiar with The Peter Principle, which states that people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It's exactly the same in the real world: if you're good at your job, it leads to advancement in your career, and then you don't get to do those things anymore that made you deserve that advancement.”
— Stewart Butterfield
Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

The quote archive

Economics

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

Our philosophy has been about trying to control the entire customer experience. A lot of people, when they think about branding, they think about advertising and marketing. But we actually don't do any advertising or marketing. Instead, we invest all of that money into the customer experience, and then our customers do our marketing for us through word of mouth.

— Tony Hsieh

CEO of Zappos & Pioneer of Company Culture & Happiness

The most common misunderstanding is that the Arctic is just a frozen wilderness with a lot of ice and glaciers and a few polar bears roaming. On the contrary the Arctic is a very diverse part of our planet with multiple resources and economic opportunities, the home for over four million people of different nationalities and diverse ethnic origin.

— Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson

Former President of Iceland (1996-2016)

In our market-economy, consumers have the power. I also believe that almost every consumer has an element of compassion in herself or himself. If they are educated and sensitised about the existence of child-labour directly, I hope they use their consumer-power and translate it into pressure and change in corporate behaviour.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

The rights of children are not yet acknowledged as the key driver for human progress and development and hence they are not getting priority in economic, social or political discourse.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

More important than picking specific industries, what matters is ensuring competitive and innovative companies that are able to compete in international markets.

— Antonio Costa

Former Prime Minister of Portugal (2015-2024)

We believe that entrepreneurship is indispensable for the emergence of innovative companies that allow for the diversification and renewal of our economy, ensuring sustainable economic growth and the creation of qualified employment.

— Antonio Costa

Former Prime Minister of Portugal (2015-2024)

Changing the mood has an economic impact superior to many measures because companies and families, when they have more confidence, they act differently.

— Antonio Costa

Former Prime Minister of Portugal (2015-2024)

Uncertainty and fear are enemies of economic growth. To change motivation, it is important to give hope and make people believe. But also to give concrete results. It is important to value the positive instead of only highlighting the worst.

— Antonio Costa

Former Prime Minister of Portugal (2015-2024)

In the advanced countries, it is a very challenging time for people in the middle-income and middle-education range. They are being subjected to greater competition from labour saving technology.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

If very damaging, asymmetries can destroy markets- causing them to unwind from the top- this is the adverse selection problem. People with high quality products remove them from the market due to the price being an average… the quality drops, then the price drops again.. and you end up with a cycle.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

There are cultures in which a young man, to signal his interest in a woman, would camp outside her house for any number of days. The ones who aren't really interested say, '...to hell with it, it's not worth it!' – In this sense, signalling screens people out.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

There are two basic underlying reasons economies slow down. Firstly dysfunctional politics and secondly economic mistakes.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

I grew up in Canada and have a lot of friends in Argentina. In the early part of the 20th Century, Argentina was wealthier and had a higher per-capita income than Canada. The country had severe governance issues which impacted economic and social development.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

At the end of this century 40-50 years from now, the proportion of our world's population who live in the developing world will have gone from 15%, 200 years ago, to over 85% – we'll be left with a very different planet.

— Michael Spence

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

There is then a second order overconfidence where someone recognises a bubble but feels they will escape it when other people don't.

— Daniel Kahneman

Nobel Prize Winner in Economics for Behavioral Economics Research

Many entrepreneurs are deluded about their odds of success, that evidence is very clear. This creates problems… Should a government subsidise entrepreneurs who greatly over-estimate their chances of success?

— Daniel Kahneman

Nobel Prize Winner in Economics for Behavioral Economics Research